Britain's Most Daring
 

Sounds interesting. Looking forward to seeing how it goes.

Prologue
 

Very excited to read on! I'm guessing the characters are in the North based on the dialects?

Episode 1 (Part 1)
 

Maddie goes back in, and, after Phil’s finished putting the garden chairs back in the shed, we follow suit. As we head for the living room, two hands place themselves on my bum, and I feel them give it a gentle squeeze.

“What did I do right, to end up with a cracker like you?!” Phil murmurs in my ear.

“Don’t you remember?” I tease.

He chuckles, and replies, “I thought that came after!”

“You naughty man!” I reproach him, playfully. We enter the living room, where Lissie is sprawled across the floor, her head supported by her hands which are resting on a pillow she’s brought down from upstairs. Maddie sits in ‘her’ chair, as Phil and I plop ourselves down on the sofa. I look down and can see Lissie’s foot wiggling frantically. It’s the giveaway sign that tells me she really is super-excited!

I move a little closer to Phil, as we sit together, waiting for the start of Gemma’s TV show, wishing to continue the closeness we had been sharing before Maddie dragged us in from the garden. He responds when I snuggle against him, placing his arm around my back and giving my side a gentle squeeze. I notice Maddie roll her eyes as she spots us cuddling. Lissie is too focussed on the TV screen to take interest in anything else, her foot still wiggling away! Maddie returns her attention to the TV, as I place my hand in Phil’s.

“Seriously, Emma,” he whispers, “how is it that I’m going flabby and grey, and you’re still as drop-dead gorgeous as you were when we were going out together?”

“Because I’m careful about what I eat, and I actually go out and take a walk at lunchtime, unlike some people I know!” I tell him. Which is all true; but I think, really, I’ve just got lucky in life’s gene lottery, and held onto the lovely honey-brown hue of my hair longer than maybe I should have, by rights! The diet and exercise help keep me slimmer than I would otherwise be, and also keep Phil’s favourite part of me firm and peachy!

He is about to comment but is interrupted when our attention is grabbed by the continuity announcer’s voice.

“And now, on Channel 4, I dare you to watch our brand-new show for the audacious at heart, Britain’s Most Daring. Viewers of a nervous disposition, well, just hold tight!”

The opening titles for Channel 4’s new edgy gameshow flash across the screen, promising hints of what might be to come. As the titles end and the music fades, the two presenters step forward. Typically of Channel 4, the show is being fronted by two TV newcomers, plucked from obscurity to give the show the desired freshness. They are both young, and dressed casually with just a hint of allure, particularly on the part of the female presenter.

She is blonde, blue-eyed, mid-20s, and a little shorter than her male co-host, and would be more so without her heels. She’s wearing a dark sleeveless top and a pencil skirt that sits on her knees. The top has a plunging neckline, that reveals enough skin to indicate that her bust is in proportion with her slim figure. She has a large mole on her upper right arm that, unusually, the show’s make-up people haven’t tried to cover up. Her legs are shapely, and her lightly-freckled face is framed by her shoulder-length hair and filled by a broad smile.

Beside her stands a slim man, about the same age, with tousled dark hair and a well-tanned face. He is toned but shows no noticeable muscles either on his torso or his arms. His eyes are quite deep-set, but sparkle as he smiles, their slight green colour giving him a distinctive appearance. He is clean-shaven, having rejected the current trend for facial hair, a decision that, on reflection, probably fits his face’s shape better than a beard would have done. He is wearing a cream-coloured polo shirt and slightly-worn skinny jeans. It’s a look that suits the edginess of the show well, which, undoubtedly, is why the costume manager chose it for him.

Again, with it being a Channel 4 show, the long-standing, unwritten TV rule about how a male-female host-pairing works best is deliberately being broken. On this show, the woman is the lead presenter. Both she and her co-host appear slightly nervous, which is understandable given that this is their first appearance on national TV. But they have both been through a rigorous selection procedure and have shown themselves to be more than capable of hosting the show together.

“Hello, …” she begins, “… hello, …”. Three times she starts her sentence, but each time has to pause whilst the audience continue to applaud enthusiastically. As the cheering and clapping finally die down, she is able to carry on.

“Hello …, and welcome to Britain’s Most Daring, with me Trixie Stonehill, …”

“… And me, Joe Denecker,” her co-host says. It is immediately very obvious that he hails from Newcastle-upon-Tyne or somewhere close-by.

“Have we heard of him?” I ask. “He’s obviously from round here!”

“Ssshhh!” instructs Lissie.

“This is the show where we challenge people to go past their limits and do things they wouldn’t normally dream of, as we attempt to find the person who is Britain’s Most Daring,” Trixie enthuses. Her voice gives little away as to which part of the UK she hails from, with her perfectly presentable and pleasant-sounding standard English verbalisation contrasting well with Joe’s broad Geordie accent.

“It’s the show that does what it says on the tin!” quips Joe.

Trixie continues to introduce the show’s concept to the watching public. “Each week our daredevils will be given a new dare to complete, and failure is not an option if they want to be crowned Britain’s Most Daring! Is it Joe?”

“It most certainly isn’t!” Joe agrees. “On this show, if you flop you’re dropped!”

“That’s right,” explains Trixie, “every week we’ll say goodbye to the person who least impresses with their dare attempt until we whittle it all the way down to the last one standing: Britain’s Most Daring.”

The script has clearly been written to imprint the show’s title onto the viewers’ minds at the earliest opportunity.

“We wanted to give you, the great British public, every possible chance to take up our challenge and be hailed Britain’s Most Daring,” Trixie continues, “so we took our team out and about across the length and breadth of these isles to let you come and show us how daring you were.”

She turns her head to Joe as he takes up the story. “Yes, we divided the country into 10 regions, and held auditions in each region. Each of wor regional winners will take their place on these chairs right here.” He indicates to three rows of chairs. Puzzlingly, there are five chairs in each row.

“Now,” Trixie takes over once more, “the more observant of you may well have noticed that there are more than 10 chairs! That’s because, as well as our regional winners, we have our 5 ‘wonderful wildcards’. These are five people, who aren’t regional winners, but who we wanted to join us on the show anyway, because we were so wowed by their performance and personality.”

“They’re like wor own ‘w.w.w.’,” Joe adds, “wor ‘wonderful wildcard wowwers’!” It is already clear that Joe is going to be providing the show’s comedy element, as he is coming across as the cheeky-chappie type, whilst Trixie appears to be taking things a little more seriously.

Trixie gives just the hint of a smirk, before moving on. “So, let’s get going on our very own Tour of Britain! Where are we heading first, Joe?”

“We’re off to the North-West, home of the mad Mancunians and loopy Liverpudlians!” he tells her and the viewers. “We should be able to find plenty of people crazy enough to try wor dares in that neck of woods! Let’s go over to Lisa and find out!”

A buxom blonde, another twenty-something, with a round face, appears on the screen, standing outside a warehouse-type building that is obviously the venue for the North-West regional auditions. She’s wearing a figure-hugging light-blue roll-neck jumper and skinny jeans, and has her long hair tied back in a tight ponytail. A queue of wannabe daredevils snakes away from the doors just behind her.

“Hello, and welcome to Manchester, or as we prefer it, Madchester!” Lisa begins. On cue the wannabes cheer wildly, throwing their arms in the air and leaping about. “As you can see, they’re very much up for it, so let’s go inside!” Lisa continues, over the background noise. It is pleasing to note that, judging by her accent, the producers have picked a local Manchester lass to preside over the auditions in her city.

The scene changes to the entrance lobby of the building. Lisa speaks into camera once more.

“Before we let them in properly, we’ve given them a test of nerve!” she explains. “Our very own Ice Bucket Challenge. Obviously, they didn’t know anything about this beforehand, so they haven’t come prepared! Only those who are willing to get a soaking will be allowed in!”

There follows a montage of people being drenched with buckets of ice-cold water, interspersed with the occasional one refusing and walking away. The reactions of the victims vary, but shrieks from the women and gasps from the men are most common as the iciness hits them. One man dramatically overreacts when the freezing water soaks him, running around in circles like a complete maniac, crying, “Oh my God! Oh my God! So cold!” The montage concludes with a young, dark-haired girl, drenched from head to foot, who looks into the camera and states, “Just a normal day in Manchester!”, grinning from ear to ear.

“Once they were in, we gave them a cosy bath-robe each and sent them off to the changing rooms,” Lisa reveals, when the montage ends. “We’re not completely heartless, you know!”

The scene changes again, as we move into a large hall with rows of tables and chairs.

“Well, they’ve dried off, so it’s time for some lunch! And what better way to warm up than with a traditional Lancashire Hotpot!” Lisa pauses and grins at the camera. “Only we didn’t have time to cook it! So, it’s more like a Lancashire Not-Hotpot!”

Another montage follows as the wannabes attempt to eat the mess confronting them on their plates. The pieces of raw carrot aren’t a problem, if you ignore the suspicious dark-red streaks running through them, and the bits of raw turnip are manageable as well. But the uncooked slices of potato prove to be a divider, with a surprisingly large number of would-be daredevils unable to face eating them. The main problem, however, is with the lumps of raw meat. Traditionally mutton was used in a hotpot, though nowadays it is more usually lamb. But exactly what animal the meat has come from is the least of their worries; they are more concerned with the blood that oozes out when any pressure is applied. Several simply get up and walk away, whilst others nervously poke and prod at the lumps. A few begin nibbling, and we see one man simply open his mouth and stuff one straight in.

“Eeuurgghh! That’s disgusting!” exclaims Lissie. “How can he eat that?!”

As the montage comes to an end, there are clearly a few who have eaten at least a fair part of the dish, including several lumps of meat, but the final shot shows that one man, the one we saw stuffing meat in his mouth earlier, appears to be the only one to have emptied his plate.

Lisa re-appears on-screen, in close-up, and announces, “When the time was up, the judges measured how much everyone had eaten, and we had a clear winner!”

The shot widens to reveal the man that we’re all expecting to have won standing next to Lisa, who he towers over, being well over 6 feet tall.

“Matt, well done,” she says to him, “you are our North-West Dare Champion!”

Back in the studio, Trixie takes up the introductions, saying, “Here he is, 27-year-old labourer from Bolton, Matt, our North-West regional winner!”

Matt enters to the sound of applause from the audience, and joins Trixie and Joe for a very brief interview. He has the typical appearance of someone who works outdoors all year round: he is tanned, and his face is slightly weather-beaten, underneath his designer stubble. His short-sleeved shirt allows us to see that he has prominent muscles on his upper arms.

“So, Matt,” Joe enquires, “how did you enjoy your Not-Hotpot?”

“It wasn’t the nicest thing I’ve ever had!” admits Matt. “But after 4 years of my missus’ cooking, I’ll pretty much eat anything!”

That’s brave of Matt, to come up with a one-liner like that straight away! He may just have alienated the female half of the audience!

“Are you looking forward to being on the show?” Joe asks him, ignoring the fact that the question is pointless: if Matt wasn’t looking forward to it, why on earth had we auditioned for it?!

“Yeah,” Matt tells him, “it’s going to be a real crack! I can’t wait to get going!”

“Well, Matt,” Trixie says to him, pointing him in the direction of the chairs, “if you’d like to go and take your seat over there.” Addressing the audience, she adds, “Everybody, … Matt!” The audience applaud wildly once more.

“So,” Trixie continues, “we’ve got our first regional winner. Join us after the break as we continue roaming the country for Britain’s Most Daring!”

As the adverts begin, I look at Phil to try to gauge his reaction to what he’s seen, but even 21 years of marriage doesn’t help me read his expressionless features.

Loving how realistic this is. Could totally picture a show like this on Channel 4, you’ve got the bad one-liners down to the tee.

Episode 1 (Part 2)
 

Maddie is frantically swiping the screen of her phone. Appearing to find what she’s searching for, she looks up and says, “Remember when you did the Ice Bucket Challenge, Dad?”

Rolling over onto her back, to give herself a better view of her Dad, Lissie exclaims, “Oh, that was so-oo funny!”

Maddie comes over and squeezes herself between me and Phil; Lissie follows her, standing so that she is leaning over us. We all look at Maddie’s phone as she plays the video clip of Phil having a bucket of icy water thrown over him by a very excited 14-year-old eldest daughter. We see him flinch as his skin is hit by a sudden and dramatic temperature drop. In the background we can hear Lissie shrieking with delight! The clip ends with my sopping-wet, shivering husband flanked by his two daughters, who are careful to leave a fairly wide gap between themselves and their Dad. Phil has a forced smile on his face, but the two girls are beaming from ear to ear!

“You were lucky it was a nice warm day!” I remind him.

“You were lucky I didn’t nominate you afterwards!” he tells me.

As we hear the theme music begin, Maddie and Lissie resume their TV-watching positions, ready for part two.

“Welcome back to Britain’s Most Daring, with me, Trixie Stonehill, …”

“… And me, Joe Denecker.”

“Before the break, we saw Matt become our first regional winner,” Trixie reminds us, “so let’s crack on! Where are we going next, Joe?”

Joe reveals our next destination. “Well, Trixie, if we were living on a polo mint, we’d be about to fall through the hole, because we’re heading right for the middle! Fortunately, in Britain, we call that the Midlands, and that’s where Richie is waiting for us!”

The screen shows a slightly older man, wearing a somewhat tatty jacket and jeans, which gives him a rough-and-ready appearance. This is augmented by his close-cropped hair and stubble-covered chin. As he welcomes us to the Midlands, Richie’s accent gives him away as being from the part of the country he’s reporting from, just like Lisa earlier.

“Hello from Birmingham, Britain’s second city, here in the Heart of England. Remember that phrase for later!” he advises us. “Before we can let our wannabe daredevils from the Midlands in, we need their help to unlock the door! All they have to do is find the key from in here!”

He holds up a small plastic bucket, the kind that young children use to make sandcastles on the beach. The camera zooms in on the contents of the bucket. It appears to be full of animal poo of some kind.

Lissie looks at me. “Is that what I think it is?” she asks.

“Yes,” I tell her, “I think it is!”

“Uugghhh!” she says, expressing herself very clearly!

During the next montage, roughly half the people in the queue to get into the building refuse to delve into the bucket of poo. Those that do hunt for the key, have, without exception, expressions of extreme disgust on their faces. However, once they’re committed, every single one comes up with the key in their hand.

The scene changes to one very like the hall in Manchester, with the same arrangement of chairs and tables.

Richie continues, talking into camera, “Now they’re in, it’s time for the food. For obvious reasons, we didn’t let them prepare it themselves!” He chuckles. “Now, remember I told you we were in the Heart of England? Well, what else could we give them to eat, then, but this?!”

He holds up a plate with three very different-sized lumps of meat-stuff on it. It looks like a gruesome version of the Goldilocks tale! The smallest is about half-a-centimetre across; the next is about three centimetres; and the largest almost ten centimetres across. It is very clear that none of them have been anywhere near an oven!

Richie explains what we are looking at, “So, here we have three hearts: a mouse heart, a chicken’s heart, and a pig’s heart. I think we can all work out which is which! But who fancies this for lunch, eh?”

We get another montage, as we watch the wannabes trying to pluck up the courage to start on the hearts. The mouse’s heart is so small it could probably be swallowed whole, avoiding the unpleasantness of experiencing its taste or texture. The other two are going to be more of a problem. We see mouse hearts disappearing into mouths, with just one refusal mixed in. Then we get our first shot of someone, a young woman, eating the chicken’s heart. A few more follow, in between shots of people prodding disconsolately at the larger hearts on their plate. A middle-aged man gets up and walks out. The camera focusses on another young woman, with brown hair falling over her shoulders, who has started chewing on the pig’s heart, though she seems to be having trouble swallowing it. The camera lingers on several plates that have been cleared of the two smaller hearts, but still have the pig’s heart left, before the montage comes to an end with the same young, brown-haired woman spitting out a partially-chewed lump of pig’s heart.

“Eeurghh! That’s gross!” exclaims Lissie.

Like we needed telling!

We see a tightly-framed shot of Richie as he announces the result. “Well, no-one actually ate everything! I know! Can you believe it?! But, once the judges had tallied things up, the winner was Bex!”

The camera shot widens and we see the young woman who had been the first to start on the chicken’s heart. She is smiling broadly, forming little pouch-like shapes on her cheeks, which exaggerates the roundness of her face.

“Well done, Bex! You’re off to represent the Midlands on Britain’s Most Daring!” he tells her.

Once again, Trixie takes over as the film ends, “Ladies and gentlemen, our Midlands regional winner, 24-year-old care worker from Edgbaston, Bex!”

The audience clap and cheer as Bex joins the two presenters, giving the audience a quick wave as she walks across the studio. Her shoulder-length blonde hair, which, judging by the dark roots that are starting to show, is out of a bottle, seems to glint in the bright lights of the studio, matching the twinkle in her dark brown eyes. She is dressed in a somewhat ill-advised tight-fitting top and skirt, both of which look as if they are struggling to keep her fuller figure in! From her demeanour, though, it is instantly obvious that she has no lack of confidence about her appearance!

“So, Bex,” Joe says, flashing the camera a cheeky grin, “you got right to the heart of the matter, didn’t you?!”

Bex gives him her best forced laugh but decides against making any sort of comment regarding his quip.

“No, but,” he continues, “what was it like having to eat those hearts?”

“Pretty disgusting!” Bex states, to the surprise of no-one.

“Once again,” Trixie says as she gently shepherds Bex towards her chair, “Bex!”

After the applause has died down, Trixie turns to Joe and asks, “Where next?”

“To the land of my fathers!” he tells her. She arches an eyebrow suspiciously. “Well, not me personally, obviously!” he admits. “We’re going to Wales. Let’s just hope that no sheep were harmed in the making of this film! Lowri, help me out, please!” The audience chuckle as the film begins.

Lowri, a raven-haired beauty in her late twenties, is standing in front of a crowd of what we assume are the Welsh wannabes, with a large Welsh dragon standing next to her, its long neck towering over her, slightly menacingly. Her dark eyes have the sort of fire about them that you would expect from the mouth of the dragon next to her, suggesting she might be quite a spirited woman. This particular audition was obviously filmed on a cold day, as Lowri has a thick coat and a scarf wrapped around her neck.

“Croeso i Gymru!” Lowri says, in her native language, before reverting to English, which she speaks with a delightfully-lilting Welsh accent. “Welcome to Wales! We’re in Cardiff to show you just how daring the Welsh are! Isn’t that right, guys?”

The wannabes leap around and cheer loudly, and the dragon also leaps about, making its head wobble all over the place on the end of its long neck. Lowri casts a quick glance above her, to check that she’s not about to get clouted on the head by her over-enthusiastic companion.

“As you can see, we’ve got our own dragon with us, and we all know that where there’s a dragon, there’s fire!” Lowri tells us. “So, our would-be daredevils are going to have to firewalk across a pit of hot embers if they want to get inside and have a chance of being Welsh dare champion! Are you ready, guys?”

The wannabes, and the dragon, leap around again, though some seem less enthusiastic now they know what they’re up against.

The screen switches to the montage, as we’ve come to expect, and we see a mix of successful and failed attempts to walk across the embers. We see several different styles, with some wannabes dashing across as fast as they can, whilst others adopt a more cautious approach. Generally speaking, it seems the faster you go, the more likely you are to make it across and not step off to the side. A lanky young black lad proves that there is an exception to every rule, as he saunters across the pit, shimmying from side to side, revelling in the attention.

When we rejoin Lowri, she is inside, amongst the usual set-up of tables and chairs. In the indoor warmth, she has shed her coat and scarf, and we can see she has a slim figure that adds to her beauty. She is wearing a pastel-green mohair top above a tight black skirt that ends halfway down her thighs. The dragon is still alongside her, looking a little incongruous in its new surroundings.

“Well, they’ve had a footbath, to let off steam, so to speak,” she says, grinning, “and now they’re ready for a bite to eat! So, what have we got for them? Well, every good gameshow should have its own Cowell, so we’ve got our traditional Welsh dish, cawl, for this lot to eat! Normally, of course, you’d cook it, but, well, we blew most of our budget on the dragon!”

The montage begins with a reveal of exactly what cawl is: a kind of soup or broth. Bits of carrot and potato are evident, as well as the iconic Welsh leek, but it’s the lumps of raw bacon that attract most attention. It’s a similar challenge to the Not-Hotpot, only made messier by the fact that everything is wallowing in a thick stock. Once more, the vegetables provide little resistance, with notably more of the Welsh wannabes happy to tuck into raw potato than their counterparts from the North-West. The bacon, though, proves to be a problem for many. Its texture means it’s very chewy, and difficult to break up in the mouth, and we repeatedly see bits being spat out or allowed to drop from the corners of a mouth. The montage ends with a shot of a flame-haired lad, looking as if he’s not yet out of his teens, holding his bowl up to his face, licking his way around the edge.

“Eat that, Cowell!” Lowri taunts, as we see her in close-up. “Well, there was a clear winner here in Cardiff, with a young lad who clearly has an appetite!” As before, the camera pans out, and we see the flame-haired lad standing next to Lowri, with the dragon on his other side. “Well done, Dylan, that was a really impressive performance!” she tells him. To the lad’s astonishment and embarrassment, she gives him a kiss on the cheek and the dragon pats his head, before the film ends and we return to the studio.

“Give it up for our Welsh winner, 18-year-old student from Llanelli, Dylan!” encourages Trixie, as the Welsh regional winner enters. As soon as we see his mop of red hair, we are able to deduce that the Welsh audition we have just watched must have been filmed some weeks ago, since Dylan’s hair has changed from a neat short-back-and-sides to a much longer ‘just-out-of-bed’ look! He is quite tall, but unlike Matt, has no real bulk to his body.

“Dylan, first things first,” begins Joe, “what was more difficult to deal with, the cawl, the dragon, or Lowri?”

Dylan blushes, and replies quietly, “Definitely the cawl, though I’m not sure I’d want to be left alone in a room with Lowri either!”

“Aye, she’s incorrigible, is wor Lowri!” Joe laughs. “And you’ve got to deal with her for the next few weeks! Are you ready for that?”

“On a dare show, you’ve got to be ready for anything, haven’t you?!” Dylan points out.

“You’ve got that right!” Joe agrees, before gently sending Dylan to his seat.

“Dylan, everyone!” says Trixie, to another enthusiastic round of applause. Without allowing it to die down, she adds, “Join us in a moment for more dares on Britain’s Most Daring!”

“What d’you reckon, Dad?” Maddie asks her father.

“Well we haven’t seen much of it yet,” Phil replies, sitting on the fence, “let’s see how it carries on!”

Maddie catches my eye and we share a look that speaks of exasperation.

“It’s brilliant!” says a voice from the floor. “Miles better than X-Factor!”

reminds me of the old tv shows they used to have such as prickly heat and wudja cudja

Episode 1 (Part 3)
 

Lissie looks up at her sister. “Maddie, do you know what dares Gemma had to do?”

“Yes,” Maddie replies, “but I’m not telling you! Stacie made me promise not to say anything. She said Gemma wants it to be a surprise for all of you!”

That’s not the answer she was looking for, and Lissie isn’t sure whether or not she is happy to just wait and see what Gemma has had to do at the auditions for the show. She is impatient to know, but smart enough to realise that her enjoyment of that particular part of the show might be lessened if Maddie tells her. It doesn’t really matter, though, as Maddie makes it very clear that there is no chance of her revealing what she knows before we see it play out on our TV screen.

Lissie switches position slightly, rolling onto her side and using her legs to shift herself to an angle better suited to viewing the TV screen. Why, I wonder, can she not just sit in a chair to watch TV? The theme tune starts again, and we settle in for the next set of dares.

“Hello,” says Trixie, as the camera zooms in from a distant shot to focus on the two presenters, “and welcome back to Britain’s Most Daring!” She brings us up-to-date with the situation. “We’re still looking for our regional winners, and, so far, it’s three down, plenty more to go!” She pauses briefly. “Let’s go to your hometown, shall we, Joe?!”

“Your wish is my command!” Joe replies, earning a shake of the head from Trixie. “Home to the toughest of the tough and the maddest of the mad, it’s the bonny North-East! And who better to show you around than yours truly!”

“Oh my God!” Lissie shrieks in over-excitement. “This is Gemma’s bit!” Her foot is going frantically now, though she is completely unaware that she is even doing it!

Maddie moves closer to the screen, sitting, literally, on the very edge of her seat, in order to maximise her chances of spotting Gemma.

Even Phil and I both sit forward a little!

We see Joe outside an impressive-looking building, to the side of which, in the distance, we can see the distinctive Tyne Bridge. He has on what looks to be the same pair of slightly-worn skinny jeans, but paired with a thick navy sweatshirt this time.

“Hello, and welcome to Newcastle!” the onscreen Joe says. “We’ve got wor own Ice Bucket Challenge to test wor wannabe daredevils. But being as we’re from the North-East, and we’re as tough as nails, there’s none of this wussy clothes-wearing for us. It’s bare-chested man, like it should be! But before you get too excited, we’ve provided bikini tops for the lasses, and also insisted they be worn by anyone with moobs!”

The camera pans round to an overweight Geordie lad sporting a bright blue flowery bikini top! He jumps around enthusiastically, making his bikini-clad man-boobs jiggle and creating a significant wobbling of his belly! This leads into the next montage, where the familiar shrieks and gasps accompany the ice-cold water hitting naked, or near-naked, flesh. It would appear, though, that the Geordies really are a tough lot, because we only see two girls refusing the challenge; everyone else gets in, including our bikini-wearing friend, who is perilously close to losing his moob-covering when the added weight of the water starts to drag it downwards.

Disappointingly, it seems Gemma’s Ice Bucket Challenge didn’t make it into the final edit.

The hall in which Joe is standing is the same as all the other food-halls, only noticeably fuller of people, some of whom are wearing bath-robes whilst others are still bare-chested or bikini-clad.

“So, time for lunch, which we haven’t managed to cook, unfortunately,” says Joe to camera, “and I’ve just one word to say to you: panaculty!”

The montage begins, and we discover that panaculty is a regional variation on the traditional casserole. On each plate we can see pieces of potato, onion and carrot, together with the now-expected lumps of meat, which in this case appears to be corned beef. The carrot is easy; the potato and onion bearable for most, though a few can’t bring themselves to eat it; and the corned beef doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem as the bacon or lamb from elsewhere around the country. Our fat friend with the flowery bikini has had no problem eating his panculty, as he shows us, when he tips his plate upside down and rubs his stomach vigorously. It all means that the montage ends with a long shot in which quite a few empty plates can be seen. This is going to be a tougher decision for the judges.

Maddie thinks she might have spotted Gemma in the background of one shot, but the image didn’t last long enough to point her out to the rest of us, and she wasn’t totally sure it was actually Gemma, anyway. By now, Lissie is becoming desperate to see Gemma on the screen!

“I told you we make ’em hard in the North-East!” Joe maintains. “It went to a judges’ decision, and based on I don’t know what, they chose Gemma here as the North-East champion.”

As the camera pulls out, Joe puts his arm around the shoulder of a girl with long blonde hair, who like Dylan before, looks to be still a teenager. Dressed in a bathrobe and jeans, she presents a rather incongruous image, but seems unfazed by her unorthodox appearance, simply revelling in the joy of having made it through. Her smile fills her face, and her greyish-blue eyes sparkle as they reflect the bright light of the camera.

Lissie is almost beside herself with excitement, and Maddie shrieks with delight at the sight of Gemma smiling at us! I have to admit, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end!

Trixie introduces Gemma to the audience: “Give her a warm welcome, 19-year-old office assistant, our North-East winner, from Wallsend, … Gemma!”

This time it’s Trixie who conducts the mini-interview. “Gemma, have you ever eaten panaculty before?”

“I’ve never even heard of it before!” she laughs. “But, if I have it again, I’m making sure it’s cooked!”

“Quite right!” Trixie comments. She leans closer to Gemma and lowers her voice, as she asks, conspiratorially, “And you had to bring him with you, did you?!”, nodding her head towards Joe.

Gemma laughs, “Yeah, he said he needed a lift, so we stuck him in the back!”

Joe looks surprised and quietly impressed by her quick-witted response. He comes across and accompanies her to her seat.

“Gemma! Yeah!” Trixie encourages the audience’s applause for the young daredevil.

“That was amazing!” enthuses Lissie.

“She was really quick to think of that answer!” Phil remarks, sounding impressed.

“She’s always been smart, hasn’t she?!” I tell him.

Maddie’s face is just one huge smile!

With Gemma’s bit over, we can all relax again.

Joe is still having a quiet conversation with Gemma. Trixie picks up on this once the applause has died down.

“Joe, put her down and tell us where we’re going next!”

Sheepishly, Joe returns to his spot and informs us of the next region to be featured. “We’re going overseas, to a land of mystery and mayhem and Mairie!”

Mairie appears on the screen. She is, like almost all of the presenters, in her twenties, and has a slightly waifish appearance, with hazel eyes matching her hair that cascades over her shoulders and down either side of her front. She is wearing a knee-length red woollen dress, accompanied by thick navy-blue leggings, both of which serve to emphasise her lithe figure.

“Hello from Belfast,” she says in a distinctive Ulster accent. “Let’s see what we’ve got in store for all our brave daredevils here in Northern Ireland!”

Phil and I watch in increasing disbelief as the nature of the opening dare planned for the Ulster wannabes becomes clear. I look at him to check that it’s not just me who feels this is entirely inappropriate, and he confirms my view.

“Oh, you have to be kidding me!” he says. “They can’t do this!”

The girls look at him, but it is clear that they are blissfully unaware of the history of the province that gives this dare such a bad taste.

“Everyone knows that we’ve had our Troubles in the past here in Northern Ireland,” Mairie explains, seemingly either oblivious or uncaring about the number of people she is about to offend, “but our wannabes are going to have troubles of their own getting past our security guards! They’re armed with paintball guns and have plenty of ammo to hand, so if you want to get in you’re going to get messy!”

Even before the montage begins, it is clear that this is going to be the sternest entrance test yet. Subjecting yourself to being shot at with paintball guns means running the very real risk of permanently ruining whatever clothes you’re wearing. It is, therefore, no surprise when the montage begins with a shot of large numbers of people leaving the queue. Many are shaking their heads in disbelief at what’s been asked of them. As the montage continues, we see the few brave or stupid daredevils, depending on your point of view, running past the paintball snipers. They emerge covered in blobs of paint, some grimacing with the stinging pain of the pellets. One poor girl, wearing the shortest of short skirts, takes several stinging blows to her thighs; as the multi-coloured rivulets run down her legs, she looks close to tears, but the sadists firing the pellets take no mercy and blast her several more times. When the montage ends, we see that, inside the food-hall, which is set up just like all the others, there are no more than a dozen wannabes sat at the tables. Hearteningly, the girl with paint-splattered thighs is amongst them.

“Well, that was tough, wasn’t it?!” Mairie remarks. “But, now they’re in, it’s time to reward them with the best breakfast known to man! The Ulster Fry! But, of course, we haven’t cooked theirs! Oh well!”

As the next montage begins, we see that the Ulster Fry seems to be a fairly standard cooked (or in this case uncooked) breakfast, with sausage, bacon and egg all on the plate. There also appear to be segments of potato, which in a normal Ulster Fry would, presumably, be fried. The potato, then, is going to be the easiest bit of this meal. The Northern Ireland regional champion is really going to earn their place in the studio! With so few in the hall, we are able to check in on each one during the montage. None have touched the sausage, and most are leaving the egg well alone, too. When the montage has finished, it’s apparent that we are going to require another judges’ decision.

“Now we know why it’s the Ulster Fry! The Ulster Raw just isn’t the same!" Mairie quips as she reappears in-shot. “Anyway, after a tough day, the judges declared our Northern Ireland dare champion to be James.”

A different camera angle reveals James to be a middle-aged, balding man, whose clothes, despite their paint-splattered state, indicate that he has an expensive sartorial taste, which makes his victory all the more impressive.

Trixie’s introduction is as enthusiastic as ever. “Our Northern Ireland champion, 46-year-old office manager from Carrickfergus, James, everyone!” she cries, and the audience respond eagerly. James smiles at the warm welcome he’s receiving. In his jacket and tie, he looks a little out of place and over-dressed, but, being quite a bit older than everyone else, it somehow seems to be the right thing to have done.

“James, hello!” says Joe.

“Hello!” replies James.

“We saw you covered in paint!” Joe reminds him.

“Yes,” James recalls, “those lads were pretty good shots!”

“Did it come out in the wash?”

“No, it didn’t! I gave the shirt and trousers to a couple of local lasses who were making a scarecrow for a village competition!”

“Good man!” Joe says, shaking James’ hand, before directing him to his seat.

“Let’s hear it for James!” encourages Trixie. Over the applause, she continues, “Join us after the break for more Britain’s Most Daring!”

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m shocked!” I tell everyone, though Phil already knows.

“I can’t believe they thought that dare was in any way appropriate!” my husband agrees, as the adverts assault us again.

“What dare?” Lissie asks him.

“The paintballing one!” he tells her.

“Why?” she asks. “What was wrong with it?”

He spends the rest of the ad-break telling the two girls about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and how a dare involving shooting people, even if it is only with paintball pellets, is in very poor taste. “Lots of people will be very offended by that!” he finishes by telling them.

Episode 1 (Part 4)
 

Maddie and Lissie look at each other, as they take in the fact that they have just sat through possibly the most controversial piece of television output that either of them has ever seen in their lives … and they hadn’t even realised there was anything wrong with it at the time!

There’s a rather sombre atmosphere in the room as the ad-break comes to a close. It is shattered by the theme music announcing the start of the next part of the show. Very quickly, the controversy is forgotten as we immerse ourselves in the next chunk of craziness.

“Welcome back. I’m Trixie Stonehill, …”

“… and I’m Joe Denecker, ...”

“… and you’re watching Britain’s Most Daring.” Trixie continues, before bringing us up to speed. “We’ve found half of our 10 regional winners, so let’s continue touring the nation! Joe?”

“We’re going to the land of the southern softies next, so don’t expect anything much from this bunch of mummy’s boys and girls!” Joe teases as he introduces the next region. “And talking of mummy’s girls, here’s wor very own Trixie! … Ouch!” A wider-angle shot reveals the cause of his last utterance to be a playful-yet-hefty punch to his upper arm from his co-presenter!

The on-screen Trixie, wearing a lemon-coloured crop-top and a pair of tight denim shorty-shorts, is standing at the entrance to Bournemouth Pier. We are made to wonder whether that means a different approach to the dares this time. We quickly find out it does. It is also safe to assume that these auditions were held many months ago, last summer, unless Trixie is incredibly resistant to the cold!

“Welcome to Bournemouth, on a gloriously sunny day!” enthuses Trixie. “All our wannabe daredevils are already on the pier, so let’s go and join them!” She turns and walks through the pier entrance.

The next shot shows Trixie standing at the end of the pier, with a long queue snaking its way back towards the main pier building.

“Before we can find them some lunch,” Trixie begins, “they’ve got to get off the pier. And for our wannabe winners there’s only one way off!” She leans over the edge of the pier and looks down. “That way!” she says, grinning at the camera, as two burly muscle-men take up position next to her. “Right, who’s first?” she asks the queue.

There follows a montage of people being hurled off the end of the pier by the two strongmen. We can clearly see rescue dinghies waiting to haul them out of the water, so health and safety hasn’t been completely abandoned! Judging by what we see in the montage, about three-quarters of the queue have ended up in the sea. Most manage to twist and turn in mid-air enough to hit the water feet-first, but there are some more-spectacular entries into the sea as well! One large man will certainly have a very red back, after going in bum-first with an almighty splash!

When we return to Trixie, she is on the beach. “So, after a nice little dip in the sea, it’s time for lunch. As you know, here in the south we like to eat healthily, so we’ve selected a snack that’s packed with goodness and just waiting to be eaten!” She holds up a plate draped with a variety of different seaweeds, which, judging by the glistening dampness, have, like the wannabes, only recently been pulled out of the sea.

Edible seaweed is a growing phenomenon amongst right-on foodies, but just how many of our wannabes have heard of it isn’t clear from the montage. Certainly, plenty of them are eyeing their plates suspiciously. Others, though, are chomping their way through the salty snack. Midway through the montage a young woman stops chewing, puts her fingers into her mouth, and pulls out a smallish sea-snail. She looks at it, shows it to the camera, and then pops it back into her mouth, swallows it, and smiles! The montage ends with a series of glimpses of empty plates. It’s another one for the judges!

“Well, the judges have had a hard time making a decision,” Trixie informs us, “but they have finally come up with a Southern champion, and I’m pleased to announce, the winner is Mitchell!”

Mitchell joins Trixie in-shot. He is another twenty-something, with a nice beach body that he is showing off to full effect, wearing only his surfer shorts.

“Mitchell,” Trixie asks him, “why is the sand wet?” He looks blankly at her. “Because the seaweed!” She laughs; he doesn’t.

The film ends and Mitchell is introduced to the studio audience by Trixie, in her usual spirited manner. “Let’s welcome our Southern regional winner, 24-year-old leisure consultant from Winchester, please give it up for Mitchell!” The audience do so, with relish.

Now that he is fully clothed, Mitchell looks more anonymous. He is average height, average build, neither particularly good-looking nor hideously ugly, and with a very normal haircut. Mr Completely-Ordinary, in other words!

“Mitchell,” begins Joe, “what was it like on the pier being tossed off by two beefy guys?” Once more, he flashes a cheeky grin at the camera; the audience snigger in response.

“I wouldn’t recommend it!” Mitchell informs him. “It’s a lot further than you think!”

“And what about the seaweed?” Joe asks. “Would you recommend that?”

“Actually, I probably would! If you washed the salt off, it would probably be okay, in a salad or something like that!”

“If you say so!” remarks Joe. “I don’t think I’ll be having any, thank you!”

“Suit yourself!” Mitchell replies.

“One more thing before you take your place over there: is there anything you want to ask Trixie?”

“Yes!” Mitchell turns to address Trixie. “What does the seaweed say when it’s stuck at the bottom of the sea?”

Trixie shakes her head.

“Kelp me! Kelp me!” Mitchell tells her.

Trixie is still shaking her head as Joe shows Mitchell to his chair. “Mitchell, everyone,” she says and waits for the applause to fade before continuing, “Joe, take me away from here!”

“Okay, let’s go to the county with more pride than your mother!” Joe says. “The home of ecky-thump and eeh-bah-gum, and if I’ve not insulted every single Yorkshireman already, I’ll work on it while we go over to Javid!”

The filmed segment begins, with a young Asian lad in jeans and a cream-coloured hoodie, in his early twenties, standing in front of another queue, this time outside an old brick-built factory-type building. He is sporting a neatly-trimmed goatee amidst a sea of stubble across the rest of the lower half of his face.

“Welcome to the Steel City,” he says, “where our Yorkshire wannabes are waiting expectantly.”
The wannabes cheer on cue.

It is clear that the show’s producers have made every effort to get a local presenter for each region, and Javid’s accent reveals he is no exception.

“So, this is Sheffield, city of steel,” he tells us, “which means there’s only one entrance test we can give our would-be daredevils!” The camera pans down to a long wooden board studded with hundreds, if not thousands, of long nails, as Javid explains the challenge. “They are going to have to walk, barefoot, along the full length of this bed of nails! That’s their only way in! But are they up to the challenge?”

The wannabes cheer again as the montage begins. We see shoes being discarded and people start to walk across the bed of nails. They are all taking it slowly, not wanting to put extra pressure on their feet by attempting to go too fast. More than a few wince occasionally as they cross, but the montage reveals only a handful of refusals, and just one, overweight man who steps on but has to quickly step off to one side, unable to put his full weight on to the nails.

As the montage ends, we return to Javid, who is now in the all-too-familiar food-hall. “Here we are, then, ready for a traditional Yorkshire delicacy: black pudding. But not any old black pudding! Ours have been specially made just for today; and when I say made, I mean mashed together and left to dry rather than actually being cooked like they normally are!”

Faced with the dried, pulped, uncooked ingredients of a black pudding, many of the people in the hall just up and leave, as the early part of the montage shows. Others scrape out the pulp and try to work out what they are being asked to consume. Oatmeal and suet seem to be the mainstays of the mixture, but there are unappealing lumps of fat in there too, and it is all soaked through with pig’s blood. As the montage comes to its final part, there are a few chomping away, but none of them seem to be doing so with any relish.

“Well, it was a close one for the judges to call, but we have a winner, and here he is: Tommy, well done, mate!” Tommy moves into shot and Javid shakes his hand. We can see that Tommy is a little older, seeming to be in his thirties, with a weather-beaten complexion on a face that looks as if it has plenty of stories to tell.

“34-year-old stonemason, from Cleckheaton, Tommy, our Yorkshire regional winner; make him feel welcome!” cries Trixie, once more whipping the audience into a fervour as the next regional winner walks on. Tommy is also wearing a jacket, which looks like it could be the top half of a decent suit, but has decided to wear with it a pair of well-worn jeans. His blonde hair, cut into a short-back-and-sides, has been slicked back with copious amounts of gel, which is glistening under the fierce studio lights. He’s not going to win any awards for his dress sense, nor is he blessed with the most handsome features, but the laughter lines we can see on his face suggest he might well have that other great attraction: a good sense of humour.

“So, Tommy,” asks Joe, “is that how you got your good looks, eating crap like that?!”

Tommy laughs and replies, “I reckon it must be! What’s your excuse?”

“Oh, man,” replies Joe, without missing a beat, “I’ve been sandblasted once too often by a nagging North Sea breeze!”

“Yeah?” Tommy quips back. “I’ve been to Scarborough for my holidays, as well!”

“One more time, Tommy!” Trixie says as the audience applaud again. She looks into the camera and says, “That’s most of our regional winners identified, we’ll find out who the last few are after this break! Join us, when we come back, for more Britain’s Most Daring!”

Phil gets up as the theme music ends. “I need a wee!” he announces and leaves the room.

Lissie rolls over and asks me, “Can you really eat seaweed?”

“You did!” I tell her, and Maddie laughs.

“Did I?” Lissie questions, somewhat disbelievingly.

“Yes,” I inform her, “when you were two, on holiday, at Scarborough, funnily enough! We were on the beach, and you and Maddie went looking in some rockpools next to where we were sitting. When I looked over, you were sat in a pool with seaweed hanging out of your mouth!”

Lissie screws up her face in disgust. Maddie has heard this story before, but is enjoying it immensely all the same.

“Was I alright?” Lissie checks.

“Yes,” I reply, “I don’t think you actually ate any of it, you just put it in your mouth. But then, when you were little, you put most things in your mouth!”

“Like what?” she asks.

“Sand, mud,” I begin.

“A worm,” Maddie adds, remembering her favourite ‘little Lissie’ story.

“Uugghh!” groans Lissie.

“You were a pretty disgusting toddler!” Maddie remarks, smirking at her little sister.

Episode 1 (Part 5)
 

“Did I really put a worm in my mouth?” asks Lissie, concerned about what exactly she might have submitted her younger self to.

“You certainly did!” I tell her.

“It was really disgusting,” Maddie recalls, “and really funny at the same time! Especially when the other end wiggled about and curled round the end of your nose!”

Lissie covers her face with her hands in an attempt to conceal her disgust and embarrassment, as Maddie revels in regaling her with all the gruesome details.

“It was half-in half-out of your mouth, hanging there, with its other end wriggling around. Then it sort of coiled itself into a loop and found the end of your nose, and it began trying to grip on. Mam had to stop it from actually going up inside your nose! Didn’t you, Mam?!”

“I did!” I affirm, chuckling at the memory of it.

“You mean you were there and didn’t get it out of my mouth?!” Lissie exclaims.

“You wouldn’t let me!” I retort. “You had your mouth clamped shut!”

“You were trying to suck it in!” Maddie reveals.

“What?! Why?” asks Lissie, incredulous at this latest detail.

“I think you thought it was like the spaghetti you used to have for your tea!” I explain.

Lissie covers her face once more. “Urgh, that’s gross!” she declares. Maddie and I simply exchange looks and nod in agreement.

The theme music begins before we can embarrass Lissie with any more tales of her disgusting toddler behaviour. Phil returns from the loo just as the show is resuming.

“Welcome back!” says Trixie. “We’re touring the country looking for Britain’s Most Daring, and we have three more regions still to visit, so where are we going next, Joe?”

“We’re off to sunny Scotland!” Joe informs Trixie, the studio audience, and the watching public. “Or should I say, soggy Scotland! I think you’ll see why, when we cross over to Lorna!”

The screen fills with a shot of a tall, slim brunette sheltering under a large umbrella as an incessant rain beats down. She has a thick dark-green sweater on and a knee-length skirt that has a tartan pattern that makes it resemble a kilt. Lorna is doing her best to keep the umbrella over her head without obscuring the view of her that the camera is getting.

“Hallo, and welcome to Glasgow!” she begins with a soft Edinburgh lilt that is frequently rated as the nation’s favourite regional accent. “As you can see, we haven’t exactly picked a lovely summer’s day, but we Scots are used to a bit of rain, so I’m sure it won’t dampen the enthusiasm of our daredevils!”

She may be sure, but, by the looks of the bedraggled queue, they don’t seem so certain. The weather has clearly put people off coming, as the queue is considerably shorter than any of the others we have so far seen.

“As I’m sure you know,” Lorna continues, “we have a reputation for battering and deep frying everything from Mars Bars to shortbread via dry roasted peanuts. And no, I’m not joking about the peanuts! So, to get in to our lunch today, our wannabes are going to be coated in batter, though we won’t be deep frying them you’ll be relieved to know!”

The montage begins and slightly fewer than half the soaking-wet hopefuls give up when they find they are about to be coated in a batter mix that probably won’t come out of their wet clothes. The others are gunged from above and emerge the other side with batter and rainwater dripping from all parts of them. None of them look remotely happy!

“You have to feel sorry for them, don’t you?” Lorna comments, from her position in the food-hall. “Well, we did anyway,” she adds, “so we gave them a bath-robe so they could get out of their wet and sticky clothes.” The view behind her, of a fairly small number of people sat at the tables, all wearing bath-robes, confirms this.

“Now they’re all ready for their lunch, and we’ve got a special Scottish treat for them: haggis, which we’ve battered, of course! But just like our wannabes, we didn’t deep fry the haggis either; or cook it in any other way. Let’s see how they get on!”

The montage begins with most of the haggises being toyed with rather than eaten. One young woman, in particular, seems intent on spreading the bits of minced sheep’s organs over as big an area as possible. We come back to her repeatedly during the montage, as the mess in front of her keeps growing. A few hardy souls are eating, with another young woman doing particularly well, but the dripping batter mix isn’t helping anyone. The final shot of the montage sees us return to the woman and her minced mess, only now she has re-arranged it in such a way as to spell out the words ‘this is shit’! Being Channel 4, there is no censoring of the bad language.

“Oh dear!” Lorna sympathises, as the camera closes in so that she fills the frame, “you have to feel for them, don’t you?!” By now, we’ve seen the format enough to realise that the winner will be standing next to her when the camera shot widens out. “Well, we had a clear winner here in Glasgow, and here she is, … Ayla!” She puts an arm around her companion and says to her, “Congratulations, and just you be sure to go and show them how daring we Scots can be!”

A young blonde-haired woman, with a curvy figure, beams with a mixture of pleasure and pride, next to Lorna. “You can count on it!” she promises.

Trixie gives her usual welcome to the latest regional winner. “Let’s meet our Scottish champion, 22-year-old graduate from Musselburgh, Ayla.”

Ayla walks on to the expected rapturous applause. She is grinning from ear to ear, and, with the fingers of one hand, gives a cheeky little wiggle-wave to the audience.

“Ayla, welcome!” says Joe. “What’s the weirdest deep-fried thing you’ve eaten?”

“I don’t really like deep-fried stuff!” Ayla replies, taking Joe a little by surprise.

He is quick-witted enough to have a comeback ready, though. “Are you sure you’re really Scottish?” he asks, jokingly.

“Oh, aye,” she tells him, deliberately enhancing her accent for effect, “and dinnae you tell me anything tae the contrary, you cheeky Sassenach!”

The audience lap up Ayla’s confident reply, and Joe milks it a little more.

“So, are you doing this for Scotland, like a little braveheart?” he asks.

“Aye,” replies Ayla, “I’m gonnae win this for everyone the correct side of the border!”

Joe points her to her chair, as Trixie says, “Ayla, everyone, our very Scottish champion!” The audience whoop with delight, as they take Ayla to their hearts.

“Our chairs are filling up nicely!” Trixie says, as we get a quick shot of the 8 regional winners so far revealed, all sitting in their places. It means that just over half the chairs are now occupied. “Only two regions left, so where are we heading next, Joe?” she asks her co-presenter.

We note that Gemma is looking relaxed, sitting on the furthest end of the front row of seats.

“We’re going from one end of the country to the other,” Joe tells her. “Down to the South-West, where every ooh is followed by an arr! Let’s check in with wor resident yokel, Olly!”

The filmed segment begins with Olly, a tall young man with a striking appearance and an even more striking hairstyle, standing in front of a large barn. He is wearing a long-sleeved shirt and jeans, complete with a pair of wellies, but it really is his hair that draws your attention. Cut short at the back and sitting just above the ears, it then rises up in swirling strawberry-blond waves that end in an extravagant pointed tip protruding forward fifteen centimetres above his forehead. Behind Olly and his hair, there is the familiar sight of a queue winding its way away from the entrance to the building. The only difference is that this building has two distinct doors a couple of metres apart from each other, rather than the usual single door.

“Greetings from Bristol,” Olly begins, with a distinctive West Country burr apparent from the off, “and welcome to the South-West regional auditions. We’ve decided to hold our event in a cowshed, and to start with we’re just asking our wannabes to simply dare to enter the cowshed! They have a choice of two doors, and just like with a cow, which entrance they choose will determine what they can expect to receive. Choose the right one and they’ll be given a light milk shower, but choose the wrong one and … well, I’ll leave you to imagine what else comes out of a cow!”

The early part of the montage is filled mainly with refusals, which is to be expected, given that this dare is another potential clothes-wrecker. As we go on, though, more people are choosing to try their luck. After each person has gone through, there is a period of clean-up, not surprisingly, given the messy nature of this dare. While the clean-up is undertaken, there is an opportunity to switch the gunge tanks behind each door, which is sometimes done and sometimes not. So, even we don’t know what each entrant will be coated in. Those we see gunged during the montage are split fairly evenly between milk and cowpats.

The bath-robes are in evidence again, behind Olly, as he does his next piece to camera. “Having got in, and got covered,” he tells us, “our wannabes can now have their lunch. We’ve found a traditional West Country delicacy for them to tuck into, though obviously we haven’t gone as far as actually cooking it! Squab Pie is a local treat, and we all know what a squab is, don’t we?! A baby pigeon!” Olly turns to the wannabes, and says, loudly, “Did you get that? Baby pigeon!”

Both of the girls look at me, frowning in half-disgust half-uncertainty. I shrug my shoulders. I have no idea whether you actually make a pie out of a baby pigeon! The way this show has gone so far, it wouldn’t surprise me!

At the start of the montage, a caption appears at the bottom of the screen. ‘Actually, squab pie contains mutton and apples, and definitely no baby pigeons!’ We now know that, but the poor wannabes don’t! The texture of the raw mutton appears to be enough to put a fair number off, but the added thought that it is actually a baby pigeon does for even more of them. Plenty are eating the bits of apple and about half are tucking into the raw pastry, but the lumps of meat are largely untouched. Except for two men, sitting next to each other, who seem to each be urged on by the sight of the other’s progress. By the time the montage ends the winner is clearly going to be one or other of these two.

Olly re-appears on-screen, flanked by the two potential winners: a big, heavy-set guy with chiselled features and a receding hairline, standing to Olly’s right; and a shorter, stocky man with slicked back hair and a friendly face that’s filled with a warm smile. “Well, as you could see,” Olly says,” it was a very close thing between Bradley here,” he indicates the shorter man on his left, “and Steve. They both did brilliantly, but we don’t do dead-heats on this show, so I can reveal that the winner in the South-West is,” he pauses for effect, then raises Bradley’s hand, “Bradley!” Steve reaches across and shakes Bradley’s hand as the film ends.

“Ladies and gentlemen, here he is, our South-West champion, 28-year-old horticulturalist from Chipping Sodbury, Bradley!” cries Trixie, her enthusiasm showing no sign of waning. The audience, likewise, are as generous as ever with their applause, as Bradley, wearing a smart shirt with equally well-presented jeans, walks purposefully across to the two presenters.

“Bradley,” Joe says, “that was a bit close, wasn’t it?!”

Bradley is keen to acknowledge how well Steve had done. “It was, real close! Steve did really well, and to be honest I thought he’d got it!”

“And I believe you two know each other, is that right?!”

“Yes,” Bradley confirms, “he was the best man at my wedding last year!”

“Well, this time round it was your turn to be the best man!” Joe tells him and sends him across to join the other regional winners.

“Let’s hear it for Bradley!” urges Trixie, and the audience respond. As the applause continues, Trixie says, “Okay, we’ve just one region to go, so join us after the break as we reveal our final regional winner on Britain’s Most Daring!”

Maddie tries again: “So, Dad, what do you think of it?”

“It’s alright!” her Dad tells her. Coming from him, that’s high praise indeed!

“I love it!” Lissie tells us, yet again.

Episode 1 (Part 6)
 

“I’m quite surprised Gemma went in for a show like this!” Phil remarks, changing the subject slightly, “I wouldn’t have put her down as the daring type!”

“No,” I agree, “I know what you mean!” Turning to my eldest daughter, I ask, “Maddie, do you know why Gemma decided to go to the audition?”

Maddie does know, and tells us, “She went with two others from her work. They all sort of egged each other on into doing it. But one of the others wouldn’t do the Ice Bucket Challenge, apparently, and the other did everything but just didn’t get picked. He told Gemma that she only got chosen because she’s young and pretty. At least, that’s what Stacie told me.”

“I’d do it if I was old enough!” Lissie announces.

I know for a fact that she wouldn’t! She might think she would, but faced with a challenging situation, Lissie generally bottles out.

As we return after the ad-break, Trixie tries to vary her usual welcome back speech a little. “We’re about to find out who our last regional winner is on Britain’s Most Daring, with me Trixie Stonehill, …”

“… And me, Joe Denecker.” There’s little Joe can do to alter his contribution.

“So, I guess we know where we’re going, then?!” Trixie half-asks half-tells Joe.

“Yep, it’s the nation’s capital, the multicultural melting pot where anything goes!” Joe gives the final region a big build up. “So, I think we can expect plenty of up-for-anything daredevils here, as we join Aleksandra in London!”

The moment she appears on the screen, it is crystal clear that Aleksandra is breathtakingly beautiful. Naturally blonde, with striking blue eyes, she has a pert figure that she is showing off in a tight-fitting mini-dress, and wavy hair that hangs seductively over her shoulders. When she speaks, we become aware that she isn’t a native Londoner. Her accent not only betrays her East European descent but adds to her allure.

“Hello everyone, and welcome to Docklands in the heart of the city of London,” she says, managing to speak and maintain a radiant smile at the same time. “As you can see, here in the capital there is no shortage of people waiting to take up our challenge!”

We switch to a wide-angle, overhead shot, which reveals an enormous number of people in a queue that wiggles this way and that around what appears to be a car park minus the vehicles.

“Because we have so many would-be daredevils, we must change our Ice Bucket Challenge to cope with the crowds,” she informs us, “but, luckily for us, we already knew how crazy and daring Londoners are, so we expected this! So, let’s watch our wannabes enjoying their ice-cold group showers!”

Once the montage begins, we see that people are entering in groups of six, and each group is soaked by the contents of a large overhead tank that is acting as a giant ice bucket. Some groups clearly contain friends who have come along together, as we see them hugging each other to try to protect themselves a little; other groups are more obviously just a collection of strangers sharing an icy soaking. We only see a few refusals, and can assume that the food hall is going to need to be considerably bigger than the others ones we’ve seen this evening.

When we return from the montage, we find Aleksandra stood on a balcony overlooking a large arena-type floorspace filled with the usual tables and chairs. Almost all of the wannabes are wearing the now-expected bath-robes.

“After we gave them a bath-robe each to dry off and warm up,” Aleksandra explains, “we bring them into here for a lovely traditional Cockney snack!” She holds up a pack of jellied eels and, with her other hand, stabs a piece of eel with a small fork. It appears she may actually be going to eat some of this. “I have here some proper jellied eels,” she informs us, “but the ones that we have for our daredevils are not quite the same. Mine have been chopped, boiled in vinegar, and coated with spices, which is what you must do! Theirs have been only chopped up and left! I don’t want to eat the ones they have, but mine … yummy!” She ends her piece to camera by popping the piece of jellied eel on her fork into her mouth and chewing.

Jellied eels, despite its reputation as a Cockney favourite, is far from everyone’s cup of tea at the best of times, and, as we see from the montage, when faced with these chopped bits of eel, the wannabes are clearly struggling. Given the huge numbers that have made it this far, it is probably a good thing that over half cannot stomach even the thought of eating bits of eel and simply either leave or sit in their chair waiting for time to be called. Others, though, are making a start, and varying amounts of eel are disappearing from plates. The camera focusses on one young black girl, who is taking bits of eel from the plates of those around her, even though her plate is still full. As we watch, she becomes more careful about which pieces she selects. We see a few more shots of people eating bits of eel, before the montage ends by returning to the eel thief. A close-up shot of the table in front of her reveals that she has reconstructed a whole eel!

When we return to Aleksandra, she is still chewing and her pack of jellied eels is empty, leading us to believe that she has eaten the lot.

“Mmmm,” she says, after she has swallowed her last mouthful, “I love jellied eels! I think I must have Cockney ancestors!” She smiles, once more, her face lighting up with its captivating radiance. “So, if you can Adam-and-Eve it, we have brought our judges up the apples-and-pears, to give us the brass-tacks and let us know who was Mae-West at the dare! And if you understood that, do me a cheesy-quaver and let me know, because I haven’t understood a dicky-bird!" She shrugs her shoulders and giggles, before adding, “I haven’t got a Scooby-Doo!” and giggling again. Regaining her composure, she attempts to put on a serious face, and states, “Anyway, our judges have been looking at what everyone has eaten, and they have picked their winner. So, a big round of applause for Tariq!”

The camera shot widens to show Tariq, a young Asian lad with a short haircut and stubbly growth on his chin, standing next to Aleksandra. He shifts uncomfortably, looking rather embarrassed, when she puts her arm around him, pulls him in close to her, and informs us, “And he’s such a good boy, as well!”, giggling again. At least she’s not quite as forward as Lowri was with poor Dylan!

We return to the studio, where Trixie introduces the final regional winner. “Let’s give our London regional champion a big Britain’s Most Daring welcome: from Acton, 20-year-old software developer, Tariq!” The young Londoner swaggers across the studio, with a very down-with-the-kids walking style. The accompanying applause is as enthusiastic as always.

Joe shakes Tariq’s hand and says, “Tariq, you managed to escape Aleksandra’s clutches then?!”

Tariq nods, and shuffles his feet, somewhat embarrassedly.

“How did you enjoy your day, overall?” asks Joe.

“It was good, innit,” Tariq replies. “I’ve never had jellied eels before, but afterwards, on the way home, I bought a pack to see what they were supposed to taste like, innit!”

“And …?” Joe enquires.

“They were a lot better than the one you lot gave me, innit!” Tariq laughs.

“Give it up for Tariq, everyone!” cries Trixie, as Joe shows Tariq where to sit.

The camera pans along the two occupied rows of chairs as Trixie begins her next link.

“There she is!” Lissie points out as Gemma comes into shot.

“Thank-you, Lissie,” Maddie replies sarcastically, “I’d never have known!”

“So, we have our 10 regional winners, but that still leaves us five seats to fill. Which means it’s time to find our ‘wonderful wildcards’!” Trixie declares.

“That’s right,” Joe picks up the explanation, “we’re looking for wor wowwers: people who impressed us with the way they took on the dares and made us want to have them on the show.”

“It was a really tough call, trying to pick just 5 from all those we saw, but, in the end, we found a collection of ‘wildcards’ that we think truly are wonderful!” Trixie continues. “But before we bring them on, let’s take a look at them in action!”

The latest montage begins, and we see shots of the chosen ‘wildcards’. Some we recognise instantly from having seen them already, whilst others we either haven’t so far seen or they weren’t distinctive enough in their previous appearance to really remember. The montage continuously jumps back and forth between the five people, and, as it goes on, we become familiar with the five ‘wonderful wildcards’, …

… there is the young woman on Bournemouth beach happily chewing on seaweed, before pausing and pulling a sea-snail out of her mouth, looking at it and then eating it …

… we see another less-familiar young woman trying desperately and repeatedly to force herself to eat pieces of a pig’s heart, but having to spit it out each time …

… a man we haven’t seen before, slightly older than most of the people on the show, appears to be trying to cram several pieces of eel into his mouth, ever more frantically each time we return to him, in an attempt to stay in with a chance of winning the London audition …

… and, staying in London, we see our eel re-constructor at work once more, taking pieces from various other plates and meticulously piecing them together on the table in front of her…

… there’s the young woman dismembering her haggis and spreading its contents over the table in front of her; and it is with her that the montage comes to an end when the words ‘this is shit’ are emblazoned across the screen in mince as the culprit leans on the table next to her work, her mouth turned down, disconsolately, but with a twinkle in her eyes.

“Weren’t they something else!?” Trixie remarks, as the audience whoop their appreciation. “So, let’s bring out our ‘wonderful wildcards’! … 21-year-old sales assistant from Weymouth, Mia! …”

“… From Solihull, 23-year-old sales assistant, Jaz! …” Joe continues,

“… From Croydon,” Trixie says, “32-year-old store manager, Keenan, …”

“… 26-year-old paediatric care assistant from Tottenham,” says Joe, “it’s Shanumi ...”

“… And,” concludes Trixie, “from Greenock, 22-year-old lab technician, Eilidh!”

As each of the names is called out, the next ‘wonderful wildcard’ walks out to raucous applause. It is instantly apparent that, however well the regional winners have done to get onto the show, it is these five who are most likely to become audience favourites, though Ayla may provide some tough competition in that particular contest!

The five ‘wildcards’ stand in a line, as the applause dies down, waiting for Trixie and Joe to have a quick word with each of them.

“Welcome along, Mia!” begins Joe. “How was the snail?”

The petite girl laughs, her face lighting up, and her dark curls dancing in time to the movement of her shoulders that her laughter creates. “Crunchy,” she tells Joe, “but okay!”

“After you took it out,” Joe says, asking the question we all want answered, “what on earth made you put it back in and eat it?”

“I dunno,” Mia confesses, “it just kind of happened! A spur-of-the-moment thing, you know?!”

“Jaz,” Trixie says, “you weren’t giving up with that pig’s heart, were you?!”

Jaz smiles. She is a little taller than Mia and has an athletic build that looks good in the elaborately-patterned t-shirt that she’s wearing with her jeans. Her brown shoulder-length hair has been pulled back and held in place by a hairband, to reveal her full face. “No,” she tells Trixie, “I really wanted to get on the show, so I knew I had to eat it, but I just couldn’t physically swallow it. It just kept getting stuck in my throat.”

“Well you’re here now, anyway,” Trixie tells her, “and we’re very glad to have you with us!”

Jaz smiles again as the camera switches its attention to Joe and Keenan. Being a little older, he has chosen to go with the look that is generally referred to as ‘smart-casual’. In his case, this means a pair of navy chinos and a sky-blue polo shirt. It goes well with his clean-shaven face and neat, short haircut.

“I take it you were fairly desperate to win as well, Keenan!” Joe says.

“I was,” Keenan agrees, “I’m naturally very competitive, so there was no way I wanted to be beaten. But Tariq over there was just too good for me on the day!”

“So, you’re here to win the overall title, then?” Joe asks.

“Oh, definitely,” says Keenan, “I’m only ever in it to win it!”

Trixie moves on to the next of the ‘wildcards’, the black girl who spent her audition piecing together bits of eel. She is tall, almost matching Joe for height, and has a full figure. Her braided hair cascades down to her shoulders, and the colour of the beads matches the brilliant-white of her smile. “Shanumi,” Trixie says, “what was all that about with the eel?”

Shanumi breaks into a fit of giggles, but quickly composes herself and answers, “I knew there was no way I could eat that stuff, so I just thought I might as well do something to pass the time, you know?!”

“Is animal reconstruction some kind of hobby, maybe?” Trixie suggests, tongue firmly in cheek.

After another giggle, Shanumi replies, “No, it was definitely a one-off thing!”

“Well, Eilidh,” Joe says, “what have you got to say for yourself?”

“I’m really sorry!” Eilidh apologises to Joe and to the nation. She looks pleadingly for forgiveness, with her baby-blue eyes tugging at the viewers’ heart-strings. She has long, dark hair, and a pretty face, which makes her look several years younger than her actual age. She is lithe, and has slender arms and legs, which she is showing off in a sleeveless top and short skirt ensemble.

“You didn’t seem like you were enjoying the day!” Joe comments.

“No, I was,” Eilidh corrects him, “it’s just that I’m a vegetarian, so when you’s lot plonked the haggis in front of me I knew I had no chance and that I’d wasted my time coming. So, I took my frustration out the only way I could think of!”

“So, you were reviewing the haggis,” Joe clarifies, “not the show!”

“Oh definitely,” confirms Eilidh, “the show’s gonnae be brilliant!”

“Everyone, give it up one more time for our ‘wonderful wildcards’!” cries Trixie, to a tumultuous round of applause.

“So, the chairs are filled,” remarks Joe, as the camera pans across the faces of the 15 daredevils, “and we’re ready to let the dares commence!”

“Yes, so, join us next week when our daredevils take on their first dare, as they seek to become Britain’s Most Daring!” Trixie concludes.

The two presenters wave to the camera as it pulls out to a wide shot showing everyone on stage, and the credits roll as the screen fades to black behind them.

We all look at each other, waiting for someone to say something.

“Well, I enjoyed that!” I remark.

“Me too,” agrees Maddie, “I can’t wait for next week’s show! You’ll watch it as well, won’t you, Dad?!”

Her father nods. “Yeah,” he says, “it will be interesting to see what the regular format is, now that the auditions are over!”

“I told you it’d be brilliant!” Lissie reminds us, with a satisfied smile on her face.

Weekly Update
 

Episode 2 (Part 1)
 

With Gemma on the show, of course, we need no other reason than that to tune in, though I will admit to having a slight morbid fascination to see whether Channel 4 will again dare to cross the line of acceptability. Perhaps the clue’s in the show’s title! I know Phil shares this curiosity, in the same way that you can’t help but look at a car-crash as you go past. But, as for the girls, well, it’s all about Gemma – nothing else matters!

So, here we are, all sitting and waiting for 8 o’clock, eagerly anticipating Gemma’s next TV appearance. Well, three of us are sitting; Lissie is once again sprawled over the floor with her pillow for comfort! As before, her foot is wiggling away nicely!

“This is it!” she announces, when the adverts appear to have come to an end.

“Next on Channel 4, it’s the new gameshow that everyone’s talking about, Britain’s Most Daring. If you have a complaint about the contents of this evening’s programme, please write to BBC Television Centre, London …”

The opening titles for Channel 4’s new edgy gameshow interrupt the announcer’s tongue-in-cheek introduction. This week they show a mixture of the images used in the titles last week and some bits from the regional auditions that have been added in. As the titles come to their finale, we hear the studio audience’s applause, which dies down as the screen fades to black and a caption in white writing appears: ‘Last week on Britain’s Most Daring …’

A montage follows, showing highlights of the previous week’s show. In a dizzying array of rapidly-changing images we see: people being gunged with icy water, batter mix, and cowpats; various people poking, prodding, and, just occasionally, eating lumps of different raw meats; a man picking a key out of a bucket of animal poo; people being thrown off the end of a pier into the sea; a woman with bits of pig’s heart falling out of her mouth; an embarrassed flame-haired young lad being kissed on the cheek by a raven-haired beauty of womanhood, as a large dragon pats his head; a young woman putting a snail into her mouth and eating it; people walking across a bed of nails and a tray of burning embers; a young black woman reconstructing an eel from various chopped-up pieces; an overweight lad in a bright blue flowery bikini top that appears reluctant to cover his moobs; and a middle-aged man being shot with paintball pellets. Interspersed with all this madness are mugshots of the 15 successful wannabes, each image on screen for no more than a second. The montage comes to an abrupt end with the phrase ‘this is shit’ spelt out in some sort of minced stuff on a table.

The audience applauds again, and we see the two presenters standing side by side. Trixie is wearing a black boob tube top with tight-fitting jeans; Joe has on a subtle variation of last week’s outfit, keeping the slightly-worn skinny jeans but now accompanying it with a lime-green t-shirt.

Waiting for the applause to die down before she starts to speak, Trixie begins her introduction. “Hello, and welcome to Britain’s Most Daring, with me, Trixie Stonehill, …”

“… and me, Joe Denecker,” comes the familiar reply from her co-presenter.

“Wow, Joe!” exclaims Trixie. “I can hardly believe we packed all that into last week’s show!”

“I know,” Joe replies, “but I tell you what I canna believe!”

“Go on!” Trixie encourages.

“After the all fuss in the papers and on TV, like,” Joe explains, “I canna believe they’ve let us come back this week to do it all again!”

“I know what you mean!” Trixie agrees.

“At one point there,” Joe goes on, “I thought we were all going to be locked in the Tower or excommunicated or something!”

“Hmmm,” Trixie reflects for a moment, “I think that’s something only the Pope can do, and I’m not sure he was watching last week!”

“Really? Whyever not?” Joe asks, incredulously. “Come on, your Popeness, get your act together, man! You don’t know what you’re missing!” Trixie rolls her eyes as Joe continues, “I mean, I have it on good authority that The Queen watched it! So if it’s good enough for Her Maj, then surely His Popeness can take a look!”

An exasperated Trixie asks, “Have you quite finished?”

“I think so!” Joe tells her.

“And who on earth told you that The Queen watched last week’s show?”

“I’m not at liberty to say!”

“It was your mate, Jimmy, wasn’t it?”

Joe adopts a slightly aloof posture, as he reveals, “It might have been!”

“Well, I suggest you pay less attention to his idle tittle-tattle,” Trixie advises, “and concentrate on the more important matter at hand!”

“Which is?”

“The fact that we’re back, despite everything!”

“Which,” Joe repeats, “I canna believe they’ve let us do!”

“Well they have, and we’re here, and we’ve got so much to get through! So, let’s crack on!” says Trixie. “If you thought last week was crazy, well, just wait till you see what we’ve got for you this week! After last week’s dare-fest at our regional auditions, we have our 15 wannabe winners, all hoping to be crowned Britain’s Most Daring.”

“Each week wor daredevils will be given a new dare to complete,” Joe continues to explain, “and on this show, if you flop you’re dropped!”

Trixie continues, “Every week we’ll be losing the person who is judged to have performed their dares least successfully, until we end up with just one person left: Britain’s Most Daring.”

“Last week, we discovered wor 10 regional winners,” Joe reminds us, “and chose wor 5 wowwers, wor ‘wonderful wildcards’. Their journey has just begun, but for one of them it’s going to come to a crashing halt very quickly!”

Trixie explains what happens next. “After last week’s show, our 10 regional winners and 5 ‘wonderful wildcards’ were ready to be given their first dare. Let’s see how that went!”

The screen shows the 15 daredevils sat in their three rows of chairs, with the two presenters, in last week’s outfits, stood in front and to one end of the rows.

The on-screen Trixie continues the explanation. “So, we have our 15 daredevils, all ready to take up their first dare on the way to becoming Britain’s Most Daring. Are you ready, everyone?” she asks them. They variously nod their heads and/or say “yes”.

Joe takes over. “Okay, there are two different dares this week, which, for the moment, we’ll call ‘A’ and ‘B’. Each of you has already taken an envelope at random, inside which is either the letter ‘A’ or the letter ‘B’. That will determine which dare each of you has been given! Is that clear?” Again, they all indicate in one way or another that it is.

“Alright everyone, open your envelopes!” Trixie instructs. “And show us what you’ve got!”

They rip open the envelopes, take a look at their letter, and then hold it up facing the camera. We can easily see that there are roughly equal numbers of ‘A’s and ‘B’s; the more pernickety viewers can count 8 ‘A’s and 7 ‘B’s.

We all look to see which dare Gemma has got. She is holding up a card with the letter ‘B’ on it.

“Okay,” Joe continues, “to tell you what dares you’ll be facing, it’s time to hear from wor very own Dare Deliverer!”

An authoritative woman’s voice, which manages to sound sultry at the same time, is heard in the studio and at home. “For your first dare I want you to meet new people! But not as yourself; as someone different! If you picked dare ‘A’, you are to be some sort of famous person or celebrity, and you must convince as many strangers as you can of that fact! Those of you with dare ‘B’, well, you are a foreigner, from abroad ,somewhere, and you must keep up that ruse for as long as you can! Be bold! Be daring! And just for this week, forget what Gloria Gaynor sang: you’re not what you are; you are what you’re not! Have fun, my little daredevils!”

“Oh my God!” exclaims Lissie. “She’s got to pretend to be a foreigner!”

“She was quite good with her languages at school, wasn’t she?” I remember aloud.

“Yes!” Maddie confirms. “She got French and German at GCSE, I think.”

“I think she’ll be okay with this!” I tell the others.

We see lots of the daredevils checking again to see which dare they’ve got, now they know what the dares are. Some seem relaxed about the dares, while one or two are looking a little more apprehensive than they were a minute ago.

Gemma, we notice, is still looking relaxed.

“So,” Trixie tells them, “you know your dares. You’ve got the next 6 days to complete them as well as you can! Off you go!”

The filmed segment comes to an end as the daredevils begin to get up and wander off.

Back live in the studio, Trixie takes up where the filmed version of her had left off. “So, they’ve spent the last 6 days taking on their first dare. But before we see how they got on, let’s meet our DAPAs!”

“DAPAs?” asks Joe, setting Trixie up neatly for her to explain the term to the viewing public. “What on earth’s a DAPA when it’s at home?”

“A DAPA,” Trixie discloses, “is a Dare Attempt Performance Analyst. They’ll be watching the attempts our daredevils make to complete their dares and giving them a score out of 10. The three with the lowest overall scores will have to take part in our Live Dare-Off to see who has to leave the show.”

“Okay, I get it,” Joe says, “so, who are wor DAPAs?”

A man and a woman, both in their twenties and both dressed smartly in sharp suits, are shown on-screen. They look seriously into the camera as Trixie introduces them.

“Well, there’s DAPA Dan and DAPA Danielle!” she tells us and Joe.

The two DAPAs nod to the camera as Joe comments, “I can see why we’re calling them DAPAs!”

“Okay, our DAPAs are primed and ready,” Trixie announces, “after the break we’ll let them loose on the dare performances this week! Join us, when we come back, on Britain’s Most Daring!”

“Wow! That’s impressive!” declares Phil, with a heavy hint of sarcasm in his voice. “A show about dares that’s gone through its entire first part without showing a dare!”

“That’s not strictly true!” I point out. “We saw lots of dares in the highlights from last week.”

“One-nil, Mam!” cries Maddie, with a twinkle in her eye and a big grin on her face.

“Technically, we didn’t!” Phil informs me. “We saw tiny clips of dares, not the entire things!”

“One-all! Can Mam re-take the lead?” Maddie says, as her sister collapses in a fit of giggles.

“Maddie, you’re not helping!” I tell her.

“Oh, no!” she declares. “Mam’s missed a great opportunity there!” Lissie is in hysterics.

“And before you say,” my husband continues, sensing his moment of victory, “lots of little clips of dares don’t add up to make a whole dare!”

Maddie adopts the excited voice of a football commentator: “Oh, that’s incredible! Dad has snatched a winner right at the end! Would you believe it?!”

Poor Lissie is holding her aching sides, she is laughing so hard!

Episode 2 (Part 2)
 

Once she’s recovered, Lissie reveals that she’s a little puzzled by the DAPAs. “Mam,” she asks, though why she picks me and not her father I don’t know, “what did Joe mean when he said he could see why they were called DAPAs?”

“Okay, well, …” I begin, before giving her a fairly lengthy explanation of what dapper means and why, therefore, the DAPAs are dressed smartly in suits.

“Oh right,” she says, when I’ve finished, “I get it now!”

“It’s a nice twist on the usual panel of judges!” remarks Phil. I get the feeling that the more he watches the more he likes Britain’s Most Daring, despite his assertion that we haven’t seen any dares yet this week.

“Welcome back to Britain’s Most Daring!” says Trixie, for once omitting to tell us her name. “We’re all ready to get the first dares underway! So, let’s see how our daredevils got on! Joe …?”

“As always, your wish is my command!” he grins at Trixie, who sucks her bottom lip in and shakes her head. “We’re going to take a look at how James got on, first. So, over to Mairie!”

The film begins with Mairie and James sitting on a bench in a pleasant-looking park on what is clearly quite a cold day, since they are both wrapped up in thick coats. They appear to be casually chatting as the camera keeps zooming in until they fill the frame. On cue, Mairie looks up, so that we can see her face, as she begins to question James.

“So, James, you’ve had 36 hours to mull over your dare;” she begins, “what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I’m in trouble already!” James replies.

“How so?” Mairie asks.

“I’ve got just about the strongest accent going, so how am I going to sound like a foreigner? That’s what I’m wondering!”

“And, have you any ideas?”

“Yes, a friend of a friend is a voice coach, so I’m hoping she can help!”

Mairie’s voiceover accompanies the next segment of the film, as the scene changes and we see James arriving at an ordinary-looking suburban semi-detached house.

“James’ friend-of-a-friend, voice coach Niamh, is indeed keen to help,” Mairie tells us.

We see and hear James and Niamh getting James to try out various different accents, to find out if he has a chance with any of them. His French accent isn’t anything to write home about, but we begin to appreciate it more once we’ve heard him mangle several other accents. His American accent quickly morphs into his normal speech; his Australian accent becomes a sing-song version of his normal voice; and his German accent sounds like the sort of thing you might have heard if Ian Paisley had joined the Gestapo!

“Shall I try a Caribbean accent?” he asks Niamh.

She shakes her head. “I’m not sure the world is quite ready for that, James!” she tells him.

“After some time, they decide that his best hope is to put on a fake Italian accent and hope for the best!” explains Mairie.

“Mamma Mia!” we hear James exclaiming. “Mamma Mia! Ma-mma Mi-ia!” His Ulster accent is still dominating any Italian that may be trying to come through!

“Niamh turns out to be much more useful than James expects!” Mairie reveals. “She’s involved in a conference that is taking place later this week, and she says she can get him a spot to give a 5-minute talk.”

“If I register you as, I don’t know, Giuseppe Ravioli or something, …” Niamh begins.

“Giuseppe Ravioli?!” James says, and the two of them roar with laughter.

“Well, something Italian sounding,” she continues, when they have settled themselves again, “and you can give your talk in your best fake Italian accent!”

“That’d be brilliant if you could do that,” James enthuses, “because that’ll give me a whole load of people to count towards my dare!” He gives the camera a smile and a thumbs-up.

Mairie’s voiceover continues, while we see a series of shots of James practising his Italian accent in a number of different locations.

“Niamh has managed to get James a 5-minute slot at the conference, so now it’s up to him to make his accent as convincing as possible.”

The scene changes to the conference venue. The compere is introducing the next talk.

“Next, Signor Umberto Landini will give a brief insight into Italian business management processes,” he says.

James raises his eyebrows to the camera, before walking towards the platform. He looks nervous, as well he might! He reaches the platform and places his talk on the lectern.

“’Allo,” he begins, “good-a afternoon, ladies and-a gentlamen! As-a you know, I’m-a try to talk-a to you about-a da bus-i-ness in-a Italia.”

The scene fades out and back in to indicate the passage of time. James is still going.

“So, in-a de way everything is-a similar but it-a take maybe a bit-a more time than-a you izpect-a.”

James’s talk continues in the background as Mairie’s voiceover resumes.

“Somehow, James manages to keep going for the full 5-minutes, but does he actually convince anyone? I’ve come along, posing as a delegate, so afterwards I check things out.”

The screen shows Mairie talking to a conference attendee. “What did you think of Signor Landini?” she asks the man with greying hair.

“He didn’t really say anything useful, so what was the point of coming from Italy for that?” the man replies.

Mairie asks the same question to two more delegates and each is equally scathing of the lack of information, but neither gives any indication that they have rumbled James.

The film ends with Mairie asking James, “So, James, how do you think that went.”

“It was-a better than-a I thought-a!” James replies, with a twinkle in his eye. “Ciao!”

The audience whoop and clap as the film ends and we return to the studio. During the film, James has taken his place in the rows of chairs. Joe and Trixie are stood next to him.

Trixie touches James gently on the arm and says, “Was that as excruciating as it looked?”

“Probably more so!” James confides. “It was just the worst possible dare I could have got!”

“But it looks like you pulled it off!” she remarks.

“I’m surprised!” admits James. “But, yes, it looks like I might have done!”

“Or maybe not!” interrupts Joe. “Take a look at this!”

Mairie is talking with another delegate, a man in his fifties, by the look of him.

“Was that guy for real?” he asks. “He sounded more like that guy who had that stupid hit record years ago, … oh, what was his name?”

Mairie looks at him, unable to help, since she has no idea who he’s referring to!

“…oh, I can see him now, silly hat, even sillier grin,” he continues, “… ohhh, …”

She continues to wait patiently. Then, suddenly, the moment of recollection occurs.

“Joe Dolce!” the man exclaims. “Joe Dolce, that was him! That’s who Signor So-Called-Landini sounded like! Joe Dolce!”

“James …?” says Joe, mischievously.

“I’ve only got one thing to say to him!” James replies.

“What’s that?” asks Joe.

“Shaddap a-your face!” James grins.

There is a smattering of laughter from the audience, as those of a certain vintage get James’ reference to the title of Joe Dolce’s hit record. For the rest, it goes way over their heads!

“So, now do you think you’ve done well enough?” Trixie asks.

“I don’t know,” James says, “maybe! I’ll be glad just to get enough points to keep me out of the Dare-Off!”

“Well, let’s see what our DAPAs think!” says Trixie.

The DAPAs each press a button on their handheld keypads, and their score, out of 10, appears on the screens above each of their heads: 7 from both Dan and Danielle, giving James a total of 14. He looks extremely relieved. That score, surely, will keep him safe.

“I’m amazed!” he tells Trixie, when she asks for his reaction to the DAPAs’ verdict. “And very relieved! It’s great!”

“Our daredevils are taking on their first dare,” Trixie reminds us, “and we’ve just seen James pass with flying colours.”

“Fantastico!” agrees Joe, in his broad Geordie accent!

“Let’s see how some of the others have been getting on,” Trixie continues, “starting with Bex and Shanumi, who are both trying to convince strangers that they are famous!”

We see a montage of clips of the two women approaching various random people and bluntly asking if these people recognise them. No-one does; and Bex’s lack of success is not helped by her Brummie accent, as one particularly cynical man informs her: “You’re not famous, not with a voice like that; your voice is designed to stop you from becoming a celebrity!” Shanumi, however, after a couple of failures early in the montage, appears to adopt new tactic. Her later appearances see her get out of a stretch limo, which we assume she has hired, dressed in a fake fur coat with sunglasses casually placed over her head. At the very least, it draws people’s attention each time it pulls up and she gets out. We see a few people stop and stare, but then walk off when they fail to recognise who this apparent celebrity actually is. However, the montage ends with her posing for selfies for an excited group of young oriental tourists, who have clearly decided that she is famous enough to snap themselves with.

Once more, during the filmed segment, the relevant daredevils have come on and are now seated in convenient end-of-row chairs ready to talk to Joe and Trixie.

“Bex,” Trixie begins, “that looked tough!”

“Yeah, I don’t think my accent helps!” Bex admits. “I couldn’t think of anyone who’s famous with an accent like this!”

“Jasper Carrott?” suggests Joe.

“Who?” asks Bex.

“Never mind!” Joe replies.

“How do you think you’ve done?” asks Trixie.

“Really badly?” guesses Bex. “I think I need to start preparing for the Dare-Off!”

“Oh dear, that bad!” Trixie sympathises. “Well, let’s see if the DAPAs are more impressed than you think!”

The DAPAs deliver the damning verdict Bex expects: both Dan and Danielle giving her just 2 out of 10, for a total score of 4.

“I thought so!” she says, resigned to her fate. The audience applaud sympathetically, but there is a hint of embarrassment about their muted reaction. Bex tries to put a brave face on it.

“Shanumi,” Joe asks, “whose idea was the limo?”

“I just thought ‘what makes famous people look famous?’,” Shanumi reveals, “and it’s all the flash stuff, like limos and fur coats and that.”

“Well it certainly seemed to help!” Joe remarks. “You were a hit with the tourists!”

“Oh my God, I was so lucky with them,” Shanumi explains, “they all just like got off this coach just as me and my limo pulled up, and they were like ‘who’s this’ so I played the part, and it was like ‘boom’ everyone wanted a selfie with me!” She is unable to continue as a fit of the giggles overcomes her.

“Great stuff!” comments Trixie. “But before we go over to the DAPAs, we’ve got something to show you!”

We see a screenshot from a Twitter account appear on-screen. To maintain anonymity, all account names have been blacked out. The image on the screenshot is enlarged to highlight a picture of Shanumi, dressed in her fake fur and sunglasses, posing for a selfie with an eager young oriental teenage girl. Underneath the picture we see the tweet itself: ‘just seen some minor celeb promoting herself #whoareyou’. The audience laugh when they read the tweet.

Trixie says nothing, simply allowing Shanumi to react to the tweet.

“Oh my God, that is well out of order!” she exclaims. “I can’t believe that! That is so not right!”

“How will that affect your score?” wonders Joe. “Let’s ask the DAPAs!”

Clearly impressed with Shanumi’s performance, and seemingly unconcerned about the tweet, both the DAPAs award 8 points, putting her in the lead so far on 16. She squeals with delight at the high score, which earns her generous applause from the audience.

“Well done, Shanumi!” Trixie says. “You go top of the leader-board, but it’s early days! Join us after the break for lots more dares on Britain’s Most Daring!”

“I think Gemma’s got the easier of the two dares!” Phil announces.

“D’you think so, Dad?” asks Maddie, who clearly isn’t so sure. “Why?”

“Well you saw just then how hard it is to make someone think you’re famous,” her father explains.

“Yeah, but pretending to be foreign isn’t easy!” she points out.

“No, but at least you can have a normal conversation. I mean, how do you tell someone you’re famous? You can’t just go up to them and say ‘I’m a celebrity’.”

“Get me out of here!” completes Lissie, unhelpfully.

“Yeah, I think you’re right!” Maddie tells her dad. “And she’ll be good at it!”

“Let’s hope so!” I say.

Looking forward to more updates !:)

Episode 2 (Part 3)
 

“When do you think Gemma will be on?” Lissie asks no-one in particular.

“How do I know?” her Dad replies. “What am I, a clairvoyant?”

The theme music interrupts any comeback there might have been from Lissie, thank goodness!

“Welcome back to Britain’s Most Daring!” says Trixie. “Our daredevils have been taking on their first dares this week, with mixed success so far.”

“That’s right!” continues Joe. “James and Shanumi have done themselves proud, but poor Bex looks like she could be staring the Live Dare-Off in the face!”

“But there are plenty more to go, so she may yet escape!” Trixie adds, by way of encouragement. “Let’s see how Bradley and Mia found their dare! Olly takes up the story.”

The screen shows Olly casually leaning back against a horizontal metal pole, that forms part of the fence dividing the path he is stood on from a sandy beach. It is definitely not a day for being on the beach, though, as we see large waves breaking spectacularly behind him, and the wind is playing havoc with his extravagant hairstyle! He is looking cold, having foregone a coat in order to show off his tall, striking frame in a checked shirt with long sleeves and smart-casual trousers.

“Faced with the prospect of having to convince people they are foreigners,” he tells us, “Bradley and Mia have both had the same idea of how to go about this, as Mia explains.”

We see Mia standing next to Olly on the seafront, which we now assume is in her hometown, Weymouth. She is telling Olly about her idea.

“I think the best way to do this is if I pretend to be a tourist from abroad. That way I can just kind of mingle with the crowd and ask people things in a foreign accent!”

“Have you got anywhere in mind?” Olly asks her.

“Well, I need somewhere that lots of foreign tourists go to, so I thought about going up to London,” she says, “but then I thought of somewhere closer that would be really cool!”

“And where’s that?”

“Stonehenge.”

The scene changes and we see Olly standing on a gravel path that leads to some wooden buildings. On the side of one of these buildings is a sign: ‘Welcome to Wookey Hole’, it reads.

The camera pans round to show Bradley walking towards us. When he reaches Olly, he stops to answer the presenter’s questions.

“Bradley,” Olly begins, “welcome to Wookey Hole! Have you been before?”

“Yeah,” Bradley answers, “I came when I was a kid.”

“So, what’s the idea?” asks Olly.

Bradley reveals his strategy: “I’m going to pretend to be an Australian tourist. I want to do the tour with a decent-sized group, so that there are plenty of people to talk to and get me a better score for my dare.”

“Sounds like a plan!” says Olly. “How’s your Australian accent?”

“It’s not bad, mate!” Bradley replies, in an embarrassingly-bad Australian accent.

“Hmmm, good luck with that!” says Olly, as he looks into camera and raises his eyebrows.

We see Bradley walk off towards the entrance to Wookey Hole, before the scene changes once more. Now, Olly and Mia are standing side-by-side, with the distinctive stones visible behind them.

“Well, here we are at Stonehenge,” Olly informs us, rather unnecessarily given what we can see in the background. “So, Mia, have you decided on an accent?” he asks his companion.

“Well I did French GCSE, so I might try that,” she says, “maybe if I throw in a few French words as well, it will make it more convincing!”

“And if that fails?” Olly surprisingly asks, seeming to show little confidence in Mia’s ability.

“If that fails, then,” she replies, “does Welsh count as foreign?”

The shot widens and we see groups of people milling about. Mia turns and walks towards the nearest of them.

Over this shot we hear Olly say, “Bradley and Mia are ready for their day as foreign tourists. So, how will they get on? Let’s take a look!”

This leads into a montage of Mia, at Stonehenge, and Bradley, at Wookey Hole, both trying to pass themselves off as foreign tourists. Mia approaches various groups, and throws in a few French words and phrases, as she told us she would, to add to her passable French accent. We see Bradley hanging around near the entrance to the caves, waiting for a large-enough group of people to gather. After a sequence of shots of Mia wandering around Stonehenge with various other tourists, happily chatting with all of them, we return to Bradley as he finally latches on to a group and heads underground. We then see him at points along the tour where the guide has stopped to show them something of particular interest. He asks the guide a couple of questions in his mangled Aussie accent, and also attempts to engage his fellow tourists in conversation. Without exception, they try to ignore him. As the montage comes towards its conclusion, it is clear that Mia is having more success than Bradley, possibly because of her ability to add a few French phrases to her repertoire. The montage ends with Bradley turning to camera and exclaiming, “This is hopeless!”

“So, Bradley,” asks Trixie, once the film has ended and the applause subsided, “was it that bad?”

“Yes,” he says, “for a start there was hardly anyone there, which didn’t help. And I couldn’t get the accent quite right.”

Joe looks at him in mock disbelief. “Have you never seen Neighbours?”

Bradley just looks at Joe, smiles, and shrugs.

“What made you choose an Australian accent?” Joe asks him.

“I thought I could do one!”

“And, now, …?

Bradley gives an embarrassed cough. “It might have been a mistake!” he concedes.

Trixie rests her hand on his arm, sympathetically, as she says, “Shall we see what the DAPAs say about it?”

The DAPAs are unimpressed, with Dan giving him 4 and Danielle just 3, making a combined score of 7, which is going to leave him vulnerable. Bradley nods his head slightly, acknowledging that the score, whilst low, is deserved.

“Well, Bradley,” Trixie tells him what he must already know, “that could leave you in the Dare-Off. How d’you feel?”

“Let’s hope some of the others are even worse!” he says, optimistically.

As the studio audience applaud, the camera swings from Trixie and Bradley to Joe and Mia.

“So, Mia,” begins Joe, “how did your sightseeing go?”

“Stonehenge was great!” Mia replies.

“What about the dare?” Joe asks.

“Yeah, that went okay!” she tells him. “There weren’t as many people as I was expecting, but I managed to talk to quite a few.”

Trixie has joined the pair, and asks Mia, “And how long did it take them to rumble you?”

“I don’t think any of them did,” Mia says, confidently.

“Are you sure about that?” Joe asks, with a hint of menace in his voice.

“Fairly,” she offers, visibly losing confidence.

“Let’s see, shall we?!” he says.

We see Olly, still at Stonehenge, with a couple who look to be in their sixties and we assume are husband and wife. The man looks into camera and speaks with an exaggerated comedy French accent.

“Leesten very keffully, I shall say zees only wernce! Zat girl, she ees not French. I sink she ees barmee!”

The audience laugh appreciatively, though it is quite likely that a lot of the younger members won’t fully understand the joke. When we return to the studio shot, it is obvious that Mia is among those who don’t get it. Rather than ruin the effect by having to explain it all, Joe simply hands over to his co-presenter.

“What are you thinking, Trixie?” he asks.

“I think we need to go over to the DAPAs!” she tells him.

Mia is thoroughly unimpressed and disappointed when the DAPAs award her a total of 11 points, 6 from Dan and 5 from Danielle. Although it will, almost certainly, keep her safe from the Dare-Off, it’s lower than she thinks she deserves. The audience’s groans suggest they agree with her. She indicates her displeasure with a slow shake of her head.

“The DAPAs didn’t seem to like your attempt, Mia!” Trixie tells her.

“I don’t get it!” Mia complains. “Just because one old man thinks he’s funny they go and knock me down like that? I mean, come on!”

The audience applaud, as they decide to back Mia in her dispute with the DAPAs. For their part, the DAPAs just shrug and shake their heads in response.

“The DAPAs are not making themselves popular!” Joe comments.

“But they’re not here to win friends,” Trixie reminds us, “they’re here to analyse dare attempts. So, let’s give them some more to analyse! Joe, what have we got for them?”

“We’re going to see Mitchell, Tommy, and Eilidh, attempting to demonstrate their celebrity status to unsuspecting members of the public!”

A slightly longer montage follows, as the three daredevils try various methods to convince people that they are famous. …

… In his early appearances in the montage, we see Tommy showing us an image, on his phone, of Sean Bean. Next, he indicates that he thinks his own weather-beaten features might make people mistake him for the famous actor, and decides to play that card. …

… Right from the start, Mitchell goes for the ‘dress like a celeb, be mistaken for a celeb’ approach that worked so well for Shanumi, only, to begin with at least, he hasn’t quite taken it to the same level that she did. …

… Eilidh, meanwhile, is seen striking up conversations with random strangers on park benches, with little success. The most common reaction of her victims appears to be to simply get up and walk away! …

… Mitchell gradually adds more bling to his celebrity get-up, but it doesn’t seem to be getting him any more success. …

… Eilidh continues to harass her fellow park-goers, but it is becoming noticeable that she is targeting old ladies. We are left to wonder if she is taking advantage of the more confused members of society …

… Tommy has found an elderly lady of his own, and his OAP is determined to get a hug from the friendly man she has happened to meet in the street! Tommy obliges, but then looks increasingly uncomfortable when she won’t let go of him! …

… Mitchell appears to have met with some success, as we see him surrounded by a group of children, several of whom are asking for selfies. We have no idea who they think he is! …

… The montage finishes with a shot of Eilidh sitting on a bench with yet another pair of pensioners. She is telling them all about her role in Hollyoaks. Judging by their blank expressions, not only do they not recognise Eilidh, they almost certainly have never heard of Hollyoaks either!

We return to the studio, where the three daredevils are sat in the middle three seats of the front row of chairs, with Joe and Trixie sat on either end.

“So,” Trixie says to Mitchell, “we saw Shanumi demonstrate the effectiveness of a flashy appearance, but did it work for you?”

“Not really,” Mitchell admits, “I don’t think the people of Winchester are really into the whole celebrity thing!”

Joe leans forward so Mitchell can see him more easily, and asks, “Mitchell, where was your limo?”

Mitchell laughs, and we hear Shanumi giggling behind him. “I never thought of that,” he confesses.

“Well did you convince anyone?” asks Trixie.

“I did get a group of kids thinking I’d been in a couple of Star Wars films!” Mitchell tells us.

“Well,” Joe says, picking up the Star Wars reference, “will the force be with you, or will wor two Darth DAPAs be your downfall? Let’s find out!”

Actually, it’s somewhere in between. Mitchell gets a 7 from Dan and a 6 from Danielle, who seems to be consistently marking lower than her fellow DAPA, making a total of 13. He’s reasonably happy with that, and the audience’s applause is warm.

Turning to Tommy, Joe says, somewhat incredulously, “Sean Bean?”

“Yeah?” replies Tommy.

“Have you ever looked in a mirror?” Joe asks.

“I take the odd glance, now and then.”

“It must be a very odd glance!”

Trixie intervenes. “Did you find anyone else who thought there was a resemblance?” she asks Tommy.

“To be honest, half the people didn’t seem to know who Sean Bean was!” he tells her. “I thought I looked like him,” he adds, “but I might be the only one who does!”

“I think you are, mate!” Joe confirms. “DAPAs …?”

The DAPAs award Tommy 4 points each, possibly just for the sheer nerve of trying to be Sean Bean. The overall score of 8 leaves him in the bottom three at this point.

“I’ll take that!” he tells Trixie when she asks him what he thinks of his score. The audience respond well to his positivity.

“Eilidh, where were you,” Joe begins, “in a park or in the garden of the local home for the bewildered?”

The studio audience laugh, as does Eilidh. “It was a park,” she tells Joe. “Really, it was!” she adds, when he looks at her suspiciously.

He continues on the same theme. “So, did you target the care home residents on their day out?” he asks her, eliciting more laughs.

“No,” Eilidh assures him, “it just looks like that!”

“How do you think it went?” asks Trixie.

“They were all lovely,” Eilidh tells her, “and I’m sure some of them actually believed I was a young film actress. It’s just doesnae come across in the film. No-one wanted a selfie, but I dinnae think they even know what a selfie is!”

“I’m not sure many of them know what a phone is!” quips Joe.

“Okay, DAPAs, let’s have your scores for Eilidh, please!” instructs Trixie.

Eilidh’s technique of trying to confuse the elderly of Greenock appears to have achieved enough to keep her safe, as the DAPAs give her a 6 and a 5, split in the usual way with Dan awarding the higher score.

She is perfectly happy with her score, as she tells Trixie. “That’s a wee bit better than I thought, so I’m very happy with that! Anything that keeps me away from the Dare-Off is fine by me!”

“So, at this stage,” Trixie sums up for us, “it’s Tommy, Bradley and Bex facing the Dare-Off, but that could still all change! See you after the break for more Britain’s Most Daring!”

“It’s looking good for Gemma, isn’t it!?” Maddie says. “She should easily get more than 8, so she shouldn’t have to worry about the Dare-Off!”

“I would have thought so!” I agree.

Episode 2 (Part 4)
 

I take advantage of the ad-break to go to the kitchen and pour myself a glass of fruit juice. I make a second one, when Phil works out what I’m doing and requests one as well.

Lissie is getting increasingly impatient to see Gemma in action, but, as Maddie explains, we are only halfway through the show’s 90-minute slot in the Channel 4 schedule, so there’s plenty of time yet for her to feature.

“I hope it’s soon!” Lissie remarks.

We’ll find out shortly, as the theme music begins once more.

“Thanks for joining us,” says Trixie, launching the next part of the show, “as we continue to check out our daredevils’ first dare on Britain’s Most Daring!”

“We’ve seen 8 of wor daredevils so far,” says Joe, “so there’s plenty more to check out!”

“Let’s see some more unbelievable foreigners, shall we?!” suggests Trixie. “Take it away, Ayla and Keenan!”

The next montage provides us with a compare and contrast exercise, as it quickly becomes evident that Ayla and Keenan have taken very different approaches to the same dare …

… Right from the start of the montage, we see Keenan at different tourist spots in Central London, conversing with people in a variety of mangled accents. Each time we return to him, at a new London landmark, Keenan’s accent changes slightly. He is getting lots of attention, and an equal number of puzzled looks. But, it’s in Trafalgar Square that he faces his biggest challenge, as he gets caught up in an argument between two competing tour guides. They both want him to join their tour, and spend some time explaining how much better their tour is than their rival’s. Poor Keenan, who we think is attempting a German accent, though his delivery makes it quite hard to tell, attempts to be diplomatic at first. When this doesn’t work, he tells them that he has to be at Piccadilly Circus shortly to meet a friend. They don’t believe him, and continue trying to enlist him on their respective tours. Eventually, he spots a police officer, and asks for help, in his mangled accent. The officer helpfully warns the guides to stop harassing tourists, but then, once the guides have moved off, asks Keenan why he is pretending to be a foreign tourist. Keenan admits that he is simply doing it for a dare. “Maybe, don’t!” he advises …

… Each time we see Ayla, however, at least in the first half of the montage, she is at home practising her American accent. She is having trouble, though, eliminating her natural Edinburgh lilt. Her method of practising appears to consist of watching a classic Hollywood movie and trying to repeat the lines. Never mind ‘There’s Something About Mary’, there’s very definitely something about Ayla’s approach to this dare! Despite all her film-based research, Ayla’s American accent is not actually improving any! Needing to get her dare done, though, she heads off to a popular tourist destination and sets to work. So it is that in the latter part of the montage, we see her at Edinburgh Castle, where she is trying to pass herself off as an American student. This doesn’t appear to be meeting with much success; or, as one disbelieving young lad tells her, “If you’re American, then I’m Donald Trump!”; and that he most definitely isn’t! …

… Keenan, meanwhile, signs off the montage from the gates of Buckingham Palace, with a fairly French-sounding, “back to ze studio!”

In the studio, Ayla is sat with her head in her hands, unable to watch her own attempts at the dare. She looks up when Trixie speaks to her.

“You don’t appear very happy with how that went, Ayla!” she remarks.

“That was absolutely terrible!” Ayla exclaims. “I hated it!”

“Maybe you’re just too Scottish!” suggests Trixie.

“I’m no having that!” Ayla retorts. “There’s no such thing as ‘too Scottish’!”

The audience applaud loudly, backing up one of their favourite daredevils.

“Why an American accent?” asks Trixie.

“I can’t really do accents,” Ayla admits, “so I thought if I tried to copy the voices in the big American movies, that might be my best hope.”

“Well, let’s see what the DAPAs have to say!” Trixie looks at Dan and Danielle, awaiting their verdict.

It’s another low score, with the two DAPAs in agreement, awarding just 3 points each. Ayla holds her head in her hands again, as Trixie explains how that leaves her in the bottom three, facing the Dare-Off. Further along the row of chairs, Tommy looks relieved as he escapes that fate.

“Keenan,” Joe begins, “if nothing else, it looks like you got a fair bit of sightseeing in!”

Keenan laughs. “Yeah, I pretty much done the proper tourist route round the sights!”

Joe continues, mischievously, “But did you have to try a different accent at each one?”

Keenan laughs again. “Oh, mate, you have no idea! I just couldn’t get one that I was really happy with, so I swapped about a bit!”

“And did you actually know what any of them were supposed to be?”

“I think they were all vaguely European! With Brexit and all that, it doesn’t really matter where in Europe, does it?!”

“That’s one way of looking at it!” says Joe. “Let’s see if the DAPAs agree!”

The DAPAs are divided on this one, with Dan awarding 7 points but Danielle giving only 5. Still, a total score of 12 leaves Keenan happy enough.

“Yep,” he says, “that’s fair enough! Nice one, Dan!”

We see a shot of the DAPAs: Dan is showing no emotion, but Danielle has her arms crossed and is looking at Dan and shaking her head.

“Okay,” says Trixie, “five daredevils still to see, so let’s take a look at our next group: Dylan, Jaz, and Tariq!”

Lissie can’t believe that we’re still not going to see Gemma. A loud and exaggerated sigh indicates her displeasure.

A lengthy montage follows, intermingling three very different approaches to the ‘convince strangers you’re famous’ dare: …

… Dylan, with help from fellow members of the Swansea Uni Dare Club, has somehow managed to persuade a local bookstore to hold a book signing session for a random novel from off the shelves. The Dare Clubbers have acquired 20 copies of the book, ready for Dylan to sign. Quite why the bookstore is going along with all this isn’t clear! Having stayed up all night reading the book, so that he can at least talk meaningfully to people about its plot and characters, Dylan tries to master a convincing signature for the author, one Neville Broadhurst. “I want something quite flamboyant,” he tells us, “but which I can actually do the same each time!” In the end, he drops the flamboyance for something closer to his normal writing, so that at least all the autographs will look fairly similar! Amazingly, people fall for this prank, and, over a series of shots in the latter half of the montage we see Dylan happily signing copies for people interested in purchasing ‘his’ book! …

… Jaz also enlists help, in her case from her older sister. Nicki is a teacher at a local primary school, and although she is Jaz’s sister, they reason that the kids in Nicki’s class will count as strangers. The two sisters approach the school’s headmistress and explain what they want to do, and why they want to do it. “Basically,” Nicki tells the head, “we’d like Jaz to come in and spend some time talking with the class about children’s book illustrations. Only, we’d tell them that she’s a famous children’s artist!” The head, unsurprisingly, is concerned that the children are going to very disappointed by their not-at-all-famous artist visitor, but Jaz assures her that she can draw pretty well, and she promises that all the children will have a picture to take home. That satisfies the head, and so, the next time we see her, Nicki is telling her class that they are going to have a visit from a famous children’s artist, whose illustrations have appeared in a number of well-known books. When Jaz enters the classroom, the kids are as excited as you would expect a class of 7-and-8-year-olds to be. They listen attentively as she tells them briefly about drawing pictures for children’s books, but what they really want is for her to draw them a picture! Fortunately, Jaz is able to back up her story with some more-than-competent pictures that she draws for the awestruck kids; and, as promised, all the children go home with a picture to remember the day they met a famous artist. Until their parents watch this, of course! …

… We see Tariq hanging around a series of hard-surface football pitches in various parts of London. He has decided to use his footballing skills to pass himself off as an up-and-coming player at top local professional club, Queens Park Rangers. He’s a keen QPR fan, so he knows enough about the club to convince the kids who are having a kickabout with him. He challenges them to see who can do the most keepy-uppys, something he is particularly good at, and they marvel at his ability to keep the ball off the ground for so long. He’s getting his dare done and making a load of kids very happy at the same time! But, at the end of the montage, he confesses to feeling slightly guilty about lying to the kids like he has!

The montage’s conclusion is greeted with a tumultuous round of applause, accompanied by whistling and whooping, as the audience recognises three very impressive dare attempts. Dylan, Jaz, and Tariq are all looking pleased with themselves, as well they might!

“Well that was something else!” remarks Trixie.

“That, folks,” adds Joe, addressing the viewing public, “is how to do a dare properly!”

“So, Dare Club?” Trixie asks Dylan.

“It’s not an official club,” he explains, “but seven or eight of us are really into daring each other to do stupid stuff, so we regard it as a sort of club. But that was the best one we’ve ever done!”

“How did you get the bookstore to agree?” Joe asks one of the questions we all want answered.

“It’s an independent store,” Dylan replies, “owned by the uncle of one of our Dare Club members, so we just explained what we were trying to do and he was properly up for it!”

“And, was ‘your’ book any good?” Joe enquires, cheekily.

“I honestly can’t remember much of it!” Dylan admits. “Either I was really zonked after reading it, or it must have been crap!”

Trixie turns her attention to Tariq and Jaz. “And you two,” she says, “I suppose you feel quite pleased with yourselves for disillusioning children like that!”

Tariq and Jaz look at each other, neither particularly wanting to have to provide a justifiable defence against the allegation. After a short pause, Tariq bites the bullet.

“Like I said at the end of the film,” he points out, “I wasn’t totally happy, but you gotta do what you gotta do, at the end of the day, innit!”

“And what have you got to say for yourself?” Trixie asks Jaz.

Jaz looks uncomfortable, but says, quietly, “Well, at least they all had a nice picture to take home!”

Joe comes to her defence. “I told you, Trixie,” he says, “you do a dare properly; you take no prisoners!”

“Well, let’s see if the DAPAs agree!” Trixie replies.

With three daredevils to be judged, the DAPAs get their longest exposure yet. Prompted by Trixie, they give Dylan 15 points overall, Dan awarding 8 and Danielle 7; Jaz gets 8 from both DAPAs, putting her in joint first place with Shanumi, on 16 points; Tariq, for some reason which the audience can’t fathom, receives 8 from Danielle but only 6 from Dan, giving him 14 in total.

Joe is able to shed some light on Tariq’s low score from Dan. “Unfortunately, Tariq,” he says, “you chose the wrong team! DAPA Dan’s a Chelsea fan, so QPR was never going to cut it with him!” There is a mixture of cheers and boos from the audience, as football allegiances temporarily take over.

Despite this, all three are very pleased with their high scores. With her position as joint leader confirmed, Jaz is particularly happy.

“I can’t believe it!” she tells Trixie. “It’s amazing!”

“We’ve got just two daredevils left to see,” Trixie informs us, in case we haven’t been keeping track of things. “We’ll see Gemma and Matt in action after the break. Join us, then, for more Britain’s Most Daring!”

“Those poor kids!” Lissie exclaims. “That was so mean! Making them think they were meeting a proper artist! I bet they were really upset when they found out!”

“Maybe, but I bet they were really excited when they found out they were going to be on TV!” her sister tells her.

Lissie hasn’t thought of that. She has to concede that being on TV is probably more exciting than meeting a book illustrator.

Episode 2 (Part 5)
 

The excitement in our living room, particularly on the floor of our living room judging by the frantic movement of Lissie’s foot, is building as we get ever nearer to the end of the adverts. We haven’t actually seen Gemma do a dare yet, so we are all eagerly awaiting her appearance, itching to see how she got on with her dare of pretending to be a foreigner. We are all fairly confident that she will do well, but you never know, do you?!

The theme music plays once more, and all three of us that are on a seat subconsciously lean forward. Lissie is no longer sprawled on the floor; she is now sitting cross-legged and also leaning closer in to the TV.

“Welcome back to Britain’s Most Daring!” Trixie says once more, before reminding us of the situation. “We have just two people left to see,” she says and looks towards the daredevils, “which, unfortunately, Bex, means you are definitely in the Dare-Off! Ayla and Bradley, you still have a chance to escape, depending on how our last pair get on.”

“Here’s Lisa to tell us what happened to Matt and Gemma,” adds Joe.

Lisa is standing on a building site, next to Matt. Her hard-hat and hi-vis jacket look ridiculous on her: the hat is perched on the top of her head, balancing on the large bobble that she has used to keep her hair tied in its usual ponytail; and the jacket is clearly feeling the strain put on it by her ample chest!

Lissie groans, as the agony is prolonged just a little more!

“So, Matt,” she begins, “you supposed to be a foreigner! So, what are we doing on this building site?”

“I’m starting on a new site this week, so nobody knows me here. So, I’m going to pass myself off as a Polish builder!” he reveals.

“You mean cheaper and more reliable than your regular British builder?!” she teases.

“Something like that!”

“So, what’s first?”

“I’ve got to go and see the site manager,” Matt tells her.

We see Matt in a portacabin, which is serving as the site office, talking with a man in a jacket and tie, who we assume must be the site manager. Lisa provides a voiceover to tell us what exactly we are seeing.

“Matt has to bring the site manager in on his plan, because otherwise he’s not getting a paypacket in his own name at the end of the week! The manager is happy to go along with the ruse, and so, for this week only, Matt the builder becomes Matteusz the Polish builder!”

“So, Matteusz,” Lisa giggles, “how do you like it here in Manchester?”

“It is, how you say it, very raining!” Matt answers, with a grin, in a dubious East European accent. Clearly, if he is going to fool his fellow workers, he’s going to have to work on his accent, or maybe act all shy and untalkative!

The scene switches to a riverside park, where Lisa strolls along talking into camera, her chest swaying with each step, a fact that her lurid pink sweatshirt is drawing our attention to. “We’ll check out how Matt got on in a moment,” she tells us, “but now, I’m here in Newcastle, because I’ve had a tip-off that Gemma’s got a plan!”

“At last!” sighs Lissie.

Another scene change takes us into a small office, where Gemma is seated at a desk, working away on a computer. The intercom next to her buzzes, and we hear a man’s voice say, “Gemma, can you come in here, please?”

“I’ll be right in!” Gemma informs the voice, and, as she gets up, Lisa’s voiceover tells us, “Gemma has been called into her boss’s office”, just in case we hadn’t worked that out for ourselves. The camera follows her in and we see her boss seated at a desk of his own. He looks up when Gemma enters.

“Ah, Gemma,” he says to her, “I’ve got a special job I need you to do for me.”

“Ohh, I can see why Stacie says that Gemma likes her boss!” remarks Maddie.

“Woo-oooh!” taunts Lissie. “Maddie fancies Gemma’s boss!”

Maddie blushes as she realises she has voiced her thoughts aloud.

Gemma’s boss continues, “We’ve got a special brochure, showing our new range, that we want existing and potential clients to take up. Marketing have come up with a list of priority clients that they want to be the focus of the first wave. I need you to phone each of them and explain why we’re sending them a brochure.” He hands her two pieces of paper. “Here’s a list of the clients, with their phone numbers; and Marketing have also put together a script for you to use.”

Gemma takes the pieces of paper. “I’ll get straight on to it,” she tells her boss.

Back in her own office, Gemma is sitting, drinking from a cup of coffee. Sitting alongside her is Lisa, who is also holding a coffee cup in her hand.

“You’re looking pleased with yourself!” Lisa tells Gemma.

“Yeah, I am!” she says. “The special task that Chris wants me to do has given me an idea of how I can do my dare.”

“What’s your idea?”

“Well, when I ring each of the people on this list,” she says, brandishing a piece of paper, “I’m going to pretend to be foreign and speak in a foreign accent! I reckon there are over 100 names on this list, so that should help me get a good score! So long as I can get my accent right!”

“So, what accent are you going to try?”

Gemma considers her options: “Well, I reckon I could do a decent French accent, probably; and maybe a German one; or Spanish, possibly, I don’t know, maybe not Spanish.” She looks up as she decides, sort of! “I think French is my best one, but I might do a few German ones, just to mix it up a bit!”

Back at the riverside park, Lisa says, “Well, we’ll see whether Gemma’s accents pass muster a bit later on! But, how’s Matteusz the Polish builder getting on? Let’s find out!”

The scene switches back to the building site, where Matt is in charge of a cement mixer, which is slowly turning, as it mixes the cement, strangely enough!

“Oi, Matty!” calls a man laying bricks, “hurry up with that! We haven’t got all day! We’re not in Poland now, you know!”

“I cin only go the same fast as theese macheene!” Matteusz replies. “How I am to go faster?”

“Yeah, yeah,” the bricklayer retorts, “I thought you lot were supposed to be hard working! That’s a load of, isn’t it!?”

“Here, you git buckit,” Matteusz tells his bolshy colleague, “end you cin heff load of theese!”

As we watch Matt tipping cement into several large buckets, Lisa’s voiceover informs us, “Despite a good start to his week as Matteusz, the longer it goes on the more Matt is finding his Polish accent difficult to maintain, and some of his workmates are becoming suspicious.”

Matt and three others are sat on a scaffolding plank about two metres above the ground, eating their packed lunches. They banter with each other as they eat.

“Matty,” asks one, “how come all your Polish words have loads of zeds in them?

“What you mean?” Matteusz replies.

“It’s like, all ess zed this, see zed that, zed bee here, zed dee there!” explains his companion. “What’s that about?”

“It’s because we are use all your spare litters,” Matteusz tells him, grinning, “all ones you don’t like! Polish always do what Inglish don’t like!”

The bloke nearest to Matteusz shakes his head and looks carefully at the Polish builder. “What part of Poland are you from, Matty?”

“Warsaw.”

“Really? That’s handy!”

“What you mean?”

“It’s handy you coming from the only place you’ve heard of in Poland!”

“I not know what you say!” Matteusz tells him. “But, I need toilit!” he adds, and hastily departs the scene.

“If he’s Polish, I’m Bulgarian!” the man declares to his workmates.

“Has Matt been rumbled?” Lisa wonders, as she continues to walk along the park path beside the river in Newcastle. “We’ll find out shortly. But, let’s check in with Gemma again, first!”

Gemma is on the phone to one of the priority clients on her list, reading from the script on the other sheet of paper she was given by her boss.

“Ze renge of products ’as been increas-ed in ze new brochure,” she reads, “to reflect ze need of our customers in ze shanzhing market. We ‘ope zat eet will be somesing zat you find weel benefit your companee, wheech is why we are sending zis complimenterryee copee, and we weel geeve you a 20 per cent deescount on ze first order placed from ze new renge.” Having reached the end of the script, she stops speaking, and listens to the reaction from the client on the other end of the phone. “Oh, merci, … sorry, sank-you!” she says, in response to whatever has been said. After another pause, she adds, “Of course I can say zat eef you weesh! Are you readee? Okay! Au revoir! Was zat okay? … Oh, merci, mon cheri!” She puts the phone down, looks at the camera, and exclaims, “Aww, he was sweet!” and giggles.

“How’s it going?” we hear Lisa ask her.

“I’m really enjoying it!” Gemma admits, giggling again. “I’m mainly doing the French, and I think the clients quite like the idea of having a French girl talking to them! But I’ve done a few with a German accent as well … and zay vent qvite vell also!” She looks at us and bursts out laughing.

“Does your boss know what you’re doing?”

Gemma shakes her head as she begins to answer, but a man’s voice interrupts her.

“No, he didn’t!” her boss announces. “But he does now!” He walks into shot, as the camera pulls out a little. “This explains the strange emails I’ve had this afternoon, asking me about my new sexy-sounding French secretary!”

Gemma giggles again and blushes. “Sorry,” she tells her boss, “I was just trying to do my dare for the show!”

“Oh, don’t apologise!” he replies. “I think it’s made a few people’s day!” he adds, making her blush intensify.

“So, it looks like Gemma can pass as a French secretary without too much trouble!” Lisa comments, as she sits on a park bench and looks out across the Tyne. “But what about Matt?”

A short clip of two builders giving Matt a friendly battering with their hard-hats, suggests that he’s been rumbled!

The filmed segment ends, to more rapturous applause from the audience.

“She was really good, wasn’t she?” says Maddie.

“Yeah,” agrees Lissie, “she’s the best!”

Phil and I agree that she seems to have performed her dare well.

As the applause dies away, Joe asks Matt, “So, I take it they twigged?”

“Yeah, some of them rumbled me,” Matt admits, adding, “but quite a few didn’t!”

“So, will we be seeing more of Matteusz?” Joe enquires, cheekily.

“God, no!” Matt tells him, emphatically. “I couldn’t keep that up! It was really hard work! You were always having to think how to say things! And it was so easy to slip up!”

“What sort of score are you looking for?”

“Anything that keeps me out of the Dare-Off!” he replies, crossing his fingers on one hand.

“Well, let’s find out,” says Joe. “Over to the DAPAs.”

The DAPAs award Matt 5 points each, keeping him out of the Dare-Off and condemning Ayla to it. He is happy enough, but we see Ayla put her head in her hands once more.

Trixie is keen to find out how Gemma’s dare went. “Gemma,” she says, “you had high hopes, so how did you get on?”

“It went even better than I expected,” Gemma reveals, “I had a blast doing it!”

“Did any of them rumble you?”

“No, I don’t think so! Mind you, they were probably so bored listening to me waffling on that they weren’t really paying attention! But my boss had a few emails asking him when he’d hired a sexy French secretary!”

“What did he tell them?”

“He told them he hired the sexy French secretary at the same time as he hired the strict German one!” she laughs. The audience laugh with her.

There is great expectation when the DAPAs are asked to rate Gemma’s performance, after what seemed like a dare well done.

We, too, are hoping for a really good score.

When Dan gives her a 9 the expectation rises, …

We are all on the edge of our seats now, willing DAPA Danielle to give her at least an 8, which will mean she’ll be the winner.

… and Danielle’s 8 means that, with a total of 17, Gemma has the highest score for the first dare.

“Yeeeaaahhhh, go Gemma!” shouts Lissie, leaping up off the floor and dancing around in her excitement.

Maddie looks across at me and her Dad, with the biggest smile and widest eyes ever. “Oh my God,” she says, “she’s done it!”

For my part, I am almost bursting with pride!

It also means that Bradley will face the Dare-Off.

Trixie encourages Gemma to stand and take a well-deserved round of applause from the audience. Then she turns to camera and links into the ad-break. “So, Gemma takes the honours for our first dare, but don’t go away! After the break, we’re going to have lose someone from the show. But will it be Bradley, Ayla, or Bex who is the first to leave Britain’s Most Daring? We’ll be back after this!”

Everyone chatters excitedly, all talking over each other, reliving how Gemma had done her dare and how we had felt watching her in action.

I can only imagine how excited and proud Gemma’s Mam and sister are feeling at this moment!

Episode 2 (Part 6)
 

Maddie’s phone warbles to tell her that a message has arrived. When she reads it, her smile gets even bigger, if that’s possible! She shows Lissie the message, and then lets me see it. It’s from Stacie and simply says, ‘Yaaaaayyy!!!!!!!!!!’

“Welcome back!” Trixie says to us. “We’ve seen all our Britain’s Most Daring daredevils complete their first dare, and Gemma’s magnificent effort on the phone has seen her take the honours!”

“But now,” Joe says in a more sombre tone, “we’re going to have to lose one of wor daredevils. To find out who’s going, it’s time for wor first Live Dare-Off!”

“Yes, the three daredevils with the lowest scores on this week’s dare will take part in a special dare, live in the studio, to try to keep themselves on the show.” Trixie explains.

“So, step forward Bradley, Ayla, and Bex!” Joe instructs.

The three unfortunates leave their positions and join Joe and Trixie in the spotlight.

“How are you feeling?” Trixie asks each one in turn.

“Nervous,” replies Bradley.

“Terrified!” Bex answers.

“What happens happens!” Ayla says, trying to keep her feelings to herself.

“Okay,” Joe says, “let’s find out what the Dare Deliverer has in store for you!”

The authoritative-yet-sultry female voice of the Dare Deliverer booms out. “For tonight’s Live Dare-Off, you will each be assigned a stranger. I dare you to tell your stranger what you find attractive about them! You must keep complimenting them for as long as you can! The first one to hesitate for more than 5 seconds will be leaving Britain’s Most Daring tonight. Good luck, my little daredevils!”

During the Dare Deliverer’s speech, out of shot, Trixie has moved to the other side of the studio, where we can see three circular cubicles, in each of which there are two seats. The cubicles have been placed in a row, but with a significant gap between them. At the front of each cubicle is a missing section of wall, which allows us to see into the cubicle.

“Thank you, Dare Deliverer,” says Trixie. “Okay, let’s bring on the strangers!”

Two women and a man, all in their twenties, enter, to generous applause. As they make their way across the studio, the camera focusses on each one in turn, allowing us a good look at any attractive features they may have that the daredevils can pick up on.

The first woman is a petite brunette with shoulder-length hair that frames her face nicely. She is slim but full-bosomed, and has pronounced hips, giving her a real hour-glass figure. Her eyes match her hair and she has a slightly upturned nose that makes her face look a little like that of a Disney princess.

The man is your archetypal tall, dark and handsome specimen of manhood! He has designer stubble on his chin but a clean-shaven upper lip. His hair is slicked back and comes to just above his ears. He isn’t musclebound, but he clearly works out, and has a very presentable set of upper arms and a broad chest.

The third of the strangers is a blonde bombshell. Her wavy hair gives her something of a girl-next-door look, but the rest of her could have come straight from the catwalk. She has long legs and a slim build, atop which is a narrow face with angled cheekbones. Her piercing blue eyes complete the model look.

The three strangers head towards the cubicles, separating from each other as they reach their destination. They have clearly each been pre-assigned to a particular cubicle, and, once inside, they all sit on the right-hand seat.

“There are our strangers,” Trixie points out. “Now, can we hide them, please!”

A door slides round and across the front of each cubicle, enclosing the stranger within. We can now see that on each cubicle-front is a large letter: ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’, respectively.

Once this is complete, and the strangers are hidden from view, Joe crosses the studio to join Trixie, bringing with him the three daredevils who are to face tonight’s Live Dare-Off. Bradley, Ayla, and Bex are all looking apprehensive.

Trixie explains the set-up. “In each cubicle we have a stranger, one for each of you,” she tells the three daredevils. “You will each choose a cubicle, and with it the stranger you will have to compliment.”

“Bradley’s in trouble if he chooses the one with the bloke in!” Phil comments.

“Bradley, as the person with the highest score, you get first choice,” Trixie continues. “Which cubicle would you like?”

“I’ll have ‘C’ please,” he replies. Joe takes him over to stand next to his chosen cubicle. We know that he has selected the blonde bombshell, but Bradley, of course, hasn’t a clue who might be inside cubicle ‘C’.

“Ayla, you get second choice,” Trixie informs the young Scot. “Which cubicle would you like?”

Ayla takes her time before plumping for ‘B’, which means she’s with the man. Again, Joe escorts her to her position.

“Unfortunately, Bex, as you got the lowest score, you don’t get a choice!” Trixie tells her, as Joe returns to shepherd Bex to cubicle ‘A’, giving her the brunette.

“In a moment, we’ll open the doors and ask you to step into your cubicle and take a seat opposite your stranger,” Trixie continues. “You’ll then have 30 seconds with your stranger before the buzzer will sound. Once you hear the buzzer, you must start telling your stranger what you find attractive about them. You may not pause for longer than 5 seconds; as soon as someone does, the buzzer will sound again and the dare will be complete. Is that clear?”

Bex, Ayla, and Bradley all affirm that they understand the instructions, and they each look at their cubicle, waiting for the door to open.

“Okay, open the doors!” Trixie instructs.

The doors slide back and round, revealing the three strangers once more. The strangers remain impassive, but, with a close-up camera trained on each of the daredevil’s faces, we can see their reaction in almost intimate detail: Bradley’s eyes nearly pop out of his head, and he exhales noticeably; Ayla’s eyes light up and we hear her exclaim, “Oh, wow!”; Bex gives a slightly embarrassed grin and raises her eyebrows.

They take their seats and, frequently switching between the three, we watch them as they study their strangers. After 30 seconds, we hear a buzzer, and the frantic complimenting begins. We follow the progress of the dare, jumping frequently between the three cubicles, catching snatches of the compliments. This gives us a tantalising, teasing hint of how each of the daredevils is approaching the task, and is one of the downsides of live television. A pre-recorded dare, cleverly edited, would have revealed much more.

From what we can gather, Ayla appears to be adopting a methodical approach. She is the first person we hear give a compliment, saying “I love the way you’ve slicked back your hair!”. On subsequent occasions that we drop in on her cubicle, she is highlighting his eyes, then his smile, and then his chin. It seems she is working her way down from the top.

We first hear Bradley tell his stranger that she has “lovely, deep eyes”. The next time he is telling her how much he likes her “warm and tender smile”. We get the impression he is picking out all the features a man think’s he’s supposed to focus on!

What we hear from Bex sounds more like someone giving compliments to their best friend. “I like what you’ve done with your hair!” she tells the brunette, then, later “I really like the way your dress shows off your hips.”

As the time ticks on, Ayla’s methodical approach is paying dividends, as she is able to focus on the next part of her man’s body and think of an appropriate compliment. By contrast, the pauses in the other two cubicles are becoming more pronounced. It is just a matter of time before one of them fails to keep inside the 5-second limit and loses their chance of returning next week. But whether it will be Bex or Bradley who cracks first is impossible to predict.

With the tension mounting, we are concentrating on Bradley and Bex. A stroke of good fortune on the director’s part means that we witness the pause that eliminates Bex from the dare and the show. The hooter sounds and Ayla, who is in mid-sentence when she hears it, immediately knows that she is safe. Bradley isn’t so sure, since he wasn’t speaking when the hooter went off. He looks questioningly towards Trixie, but the presenter doesn’t give him any indication of who has caused the buzzer to sound.

“Okay, that sound means the dare is complete,” she announces, “so, daredevils, you may leave your cubicles!”

As they exit, Joe gathers them up and brings them over to join Trixie.

Although we know who has been eliminated, there is still uncertainty amongst the three daredevils themselves. Eschewing the usual prolonged pauses that this type of show has become infamous for, Trixie quickly announces the result.

“The person who triggered the hooter, and therefore the person who will be leaving tonight, is Bex!”

Joe puts an arm around Bex’s shoulder and says, quietly, “Bad luck, Bex!”

“Ayla and Bradley,” Trixie says to the successful pair, “you’ve survived, so you may go and take your seats with the others!” She addresses the audience, “Give them the credit they deserve!”

The audience applaud enthusiastically as Ayla and Bradley walk across the studio and rejoin their fellow daredevils. As the applause fades, Trixie and Joe flank the unfortunate Bex.

“Sadly, Bex,” says Joe, “you didn’t manage to keep the compliments coming quickly enough. How was the dare?”

“It was hard!” Bex admits. “You quite quickly run out of things to say! I mean, she looks really nice, but I just found it difficult to think of another way of saying the same thing!”

“And, overall,” Joe asks, “how has being on Britain’s Most Daring been for you?”

“It’s been good!” Bex says. “I just think that I’m maybe a bit too shy when it comes to approaching strangers. I’d be better at dares I could do on my own!”

“Well, before we say goodbye to Bex,” Trixie says, “let’s take a look at her highlights!”

A short montage plays, during which we see Bex pick a key out of a bucket of poo, take bites out of a raw chicken heart, approach someone in the street, and compliment a young brunette. An appreciative round of applause greets the end of the montage.

“Ladies and gentlemen, give it up one more time for Bex!” encourages Trixie, as Bex waves to the camera before turning and walking off. Britain’s Most Daring has lost its first daredevil.

“So, we’ve said goodbye to Bex,” states Joe, “but there are still 14 daredevils left, all vying to be the last one standing.”

“They’re about to get their next dare,” Trixie tells us, “so make sure you join us next week to find out what they’re facing on Britain’s Most Daring!”

The two presenters wave to the camera, before the shot changes and we see the remaining daredevils seated, waiting for the next dares. The credits start to roll over that image before the screen quickly fades to black behind them.

“That was incredible!” says Lissie. “I can’t believe Gemma actually won!”

Her Dad threw a very damp cloth over the flames of her excitement. “But her winning doesn’t mean anything, does it?!” he says.

“Why doesn’t it?” Lissie asks.

“Well, the whole point of the show is to not be the one thrown off. As long as you avoid that, it doesn’t really matter where you come. Winning doesn’t gain you anything!” he argues.

“But maybe it does,” I counter. “Maybe, next week, we’ll find out there’s some advantage that you get if you win.”

“I bet there is!” says Lissie.

“Anyway,” Maddie adds, “even if there isn’t, she still won! You can’t take that away from her!”

You certainly can’t!

Weekly Update
 

Episode 3 (Part 1)
 

Taking up our usual positions, we sit through the last of the adverts, before the TV announcer tells us what we are waiting to hear.

“Now on Channel 4, it’s our daretastic new Saturday night show, Britain’s Most Daring. You have to watch this! Go on, I dare you!”

The opening titles for Channel 4’s edgy gameshow have been tweaked once again. Alongside some of the familiar images that have been there from the start, there are clips from the regional auditions, together with some new footage gleaned from the dares performed last week. The credits end to an enthusiastic round of applause from the studio audience, before the screen fades to black and a caption, in white letters, appears: ‘Last week on Britain’s Most Daring …’.

A montage begins. It is not as frantic as last week’s opening was, but it still moves rapidly from clip to clip. Following the Dare Deliverer’s announcement of the dare, we see: James repeatedly saying “Mamma Mia”; Tariq doing keepy uppys; Bradley speaking in an appalling Australian accent; the DAPAs shrugging and shaking their heads; Eilidh telling an old couple about Hollyoaks; Shanumi getting out of a stretch limo; Dylan signing books; Mia at Stonehenge; Jaz drawing pictures for schoolkids; James giving a talk at a conference; Matt being hit by two builders’ hard-hats; Gemma speaking on the phone in a French accent; Tommy being over-enthusiastically hugged by an old lady; Gemma taking her applause as last week’s winner; and Ayla complimenting a tall, dark, handsome man. Then we see a shot of Bex as she turns and begins her walk off the show; over this shot a red number 15 appears, then the 5 changes to a 4, before the number fades away. We then see the remaining 14 daredevils, as they appeared at the end of last week’s show, waiting for their next dare. The montage finishes with Keenan outside Buckingham Palace saying, “Back to ze studio.”

Another round of applause leads into the appearance of our two hosts. This week, Trixie is wearing a classic little black dress with a halter neck, leaving her arms bare from the shoulders down. Joe has made a more significant change to his outfit, this week, ditching the slightly-worn jeans in favour of a pair of smart trousers, which he is complementing with a red-and-white checked shirt, with the top two buttons undone.

As ever, it is Trixie who speaks first as the applause begins to die away. This week, though, she is a little premature and has to pause once before restarting her introduction.

“Hello and welcome, … hello and welcome to Britain’s Most Daring, with me, Trixie Stonehill, …”

“… and me, Joe Denecker,” says Joe, once more.

“Well, Joe, what a show we had last week!” recalls Trixie.

“Aye, it was bangin’ man!” he agrees.

“Fame and foreign accents, what more can you ask for?”

“Actually,” Joe tells her, “I had a bit of a ‘famous celeb’ moment myself this week.”

“Yeah?” she prompts. “What happened?”

“I was minding my own business, like, and this woman comes up to us and says ‘You’re that bloke off the telly, aren’t you?’ I played it cool, like, and said ‘maybe’, and she said, ‘you are, I’d recognise you anywhere!’ So, I said, ‘Okay, fair play, you’ve got me!’ and she said, ‘I knew it! I never miss an episode of Geordie Shore!’”

Trixie laughs, but puts her hand reassuringly on Joe’s arm.

“I mean,” he exclaims, “who does she think I am?!”

We see the DAPAs shrugging their shoulders in answer to his question.

“Anyway,” Trixie turns her attention to the little matter of Britain’s Most Daring, “after Bex’s departure last week, we’re down to 14 wannabe winners, all trying to make sure it’s not them who’s the next to leave.”

“That’s right,” adds Joe, “once again all wor daredevils have been given a dare to do this week, and the three with the lowest scores from the DAPAs will have to take part in tonight’s Live Dare-Off.”

Trixie continues, “And whoever loses that, will be leaving the show.”

“Because,” Joe reminds us, “if you flop you’re dropped!”

“Straight after last week’s show, our 14 remaining daredevils were given their next dare, courtesy of the Dare Deliverer,” Trixie tells us.

On the screen we see the daredevils, as they were at the end of last week’s show, sat in their seats, listening as the sultry voice of the Dare Deliverer announces their forthcoming dare.

“This week, my little daredevils,” she says, “I dare you to allow someone to give you a makeover! You can decide who you want to do this, but you must give them free rein to do as they please. Be daring, little ones!”

There are varying reactions to the dare they have been given, with Bradley looking particularly concerned. Shanumi is shaking her head defiantly, and any viewers able to lip-read will spot her saying “Ain’t happening!” repeatedly.

Bearing in mind what Maddie has kind of let slip to me and Lissie, we are now wondering exactly what sort of makeover Gemma has had!

“Oh my God!” Lissie cries, looking over at her older sister. “What’s Gemma done?”

Maddie just shrugs and says, “You’ll see!”

Live in the studio, Trixie comments, “Well that’s a very different dare they’re facing this week!”

“It certainly is,” agrees Joe, “and the big question is, how far will they let themselves be made over? We could see some interesting transformations!”

“Each of our daredevils was chaperoned for their makeover,” Trixie reveals, “to make sure that they really were giving their chosen person a free rein.”

“So, let’s get straight into it!” says Joe. “First up, it’s Tariq. Here’s Aleksandra to tell you more.”

We see Aleksandra, wearing a knee-length raincoat with a silk scarf that wraps itself around her neck before plunging down her front. She is standing outside a fashion boutique.

“Tariq has decided to come to a top fashion outlet for men, here in central London,” she informs us in her enticing East European accent. “He is hoping they will give him a makeover that will keep him well away from the Dare-Off! But how far will he let Gareth go?”

The scene changes to a private room inside the boutique, which, at least for now, is being used as a kind of consultation room. There is a smartly-dressed man, who we take to be the afore-mentioned Gareth, who looks to be thirty-something, standing opposite Tariq and Aleksandra. Tariq is wearing t-shirt and jeans.

“So,” says Gareth, “what sort of look are you trying for?”

“I was hoping you could come up with something, innit,” says Tariq. “You know, just give me a new look, yeah?”

“Could you give me a little more to go on?” Gareth presses him.

Tariq looks at Aleksandra, but she’s here to chaperone, not help, so says nothing. In his effort to help Gareth out, Tariq makes his first mistake.

“Just, maybe, something a bit smart, innit,” he suggests, disobeying the ‘free rein’ instruction.

We watch a montage of clips, during which Gareth measures up Tariq, assesses his options, and pulls a few likely outfits off the pegs in various parts of the boutique.

Whilst we watch, Aleksandra’s voiceover helpfully explains what is going on. “Gareth searches for some likely options to give Tariq the look he has asked for. While he is waiting, Tariq realises he has made a mistake by giving Gareth a look to aim for.”

“Oh bruv, I shouldn’t have said smart,” he says to the camera, “I’ve messed up, innit?”

Gareth arrives back, and we see Tariq dressed in a number of different outfits, mainly either a suit of some type or a waistcoat-and-trouser ensemble. Gareth preens and picks at each one, and Aleksandra helpfully poses next to Tariq to see how each outfit looks with a beautiful woman on his arm! With each new outfit, she pushes her luck just a little more, until she is practically draped over Tariq, much to the poor lad’s embarrassment. Eventually, Gareth puts Tariq back into a mauve-and-grey, diamond-patterned waistcoat with black trousers, and adds a mauve bow tie to finish the look.

“That’s the one!” he says. “But you’ll need to get rid of the stubble!” he tells Tariq.

“I can help with that!” Aleksandra offers, inexplicably producing a lady shaver from her bag. Tariq looks a little alarmed, but allows himself to be sat in a chair while Aleksandra makes quick work of removing his designer stubble. As she finishes, she winks provocatively to the camera.

“That’s the look!” Gareth remarks.

We return to the studio, and, to an enthusiastic round of applause, the new-look Tariq walks from off-stage across to join Trixie and Joe.

“Wow, Tariq!” says Trixie. “Quite the man about town!”

Tariq is clearly embarrassed but manages a weak smile.

“How d’you feel?” asks Joe.

“Over-dressed, innit!” he answers.

“We heard you say you’d messed up, …” Trixie says, leaving a pause for Tariq to fill.

“Yeah,” Tariq admits, “he kept pushing me to tell him what I wanted, and I said that thing about something smart, innit. I knew I shouldn’t have said it, but it was too late, you know!”

“Well, let’s see how much damage that’s done to your score,” Joe says. “It’s time to go over to wor very own Dare Attempt Performance Analysts, DAPA Dan and DAPA Danielle.”

The DAPAs, still dressed to the nines in sharp suits, bow slightly to acknowledge their introductions, before each pressing a button on their handheld keypad. The score they have each awarded is shown on a screen above their respective heads. We see that both DAPAs have given Tariq 5 out of 10, making a total score of 10 points. Based on last week’s scores, this should be enough to keep him safe, but it isn’t as high as he would have liked.

“What d’you think, Tariq?” asks Joe.

“It’s okay! I think I’ll be alright, innit!”

“Tariq, everyone,” enthuses Trixie, encouraging the audience to applaud. As they do, Tariq makes his way over to the rows of chairs.

“Okay, let’s head over to Mairie in Belfast,” says Trixie, “where she’s keeping an eye on James!”

Mairie and James are back in the same park we saw them in last week, sitting on the bench once more.

“So, James,” Mairie begins, “who have you picked to do your makeover?”

“For the life of me, I don’t know why I’ve done this,” he remarks, “but I’m going to let Eleanor, my eldest daughter, work her magic!”

“Goodness,” exclaims Mairie, “that’s brave! How old is Eleanor?”

“She’s 19,” James reveals, “and she’s studying hair and beauty therapy at college, so I’m hoping she knows what she’s doing!”

At the family home, we see James and his daughter, a short, full-figured girl, stood in the living room, with an excitable Jack Russell running around their feet.

“So, Els,” James asks Eleanor, “have you got an idea of what you want to do?”

“Yes, Dad, I have,” she tells him.

“Am I allowed to know what it is?”

“No! You just do as I tell you and leave it to me!”

He smiles nervously to the camera. We hear Mairie’s voice, off-camera, say, “You still sure about this, James?”

“He’s not changing his mind now!” Eleanor tells her.

We see Eleanor set to work, tidying up what hair her father has, before giving his face a close razor-shave. She uses a hair-dye to hide the areas where flecks of grey are starting to appear, before announcing, “Now for the finishing touch!”

At this point the film abruptly ends.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s welcome James to the studio!” urges Trixie.

When James walks on we see that the finishing touch is a jet-black hairpiece, either a wig or toupee, which has been fitted very well, giving him what appears to be a natural full head of hair. He crosses the studio, smiling broadly, and stops between Joe and Trixie.

“That’s quite something Eleanor’s done for you there!” comments Joe.

“Isn’t it just!” laughs James.

“What did you think when you first saw it?” asks Trixie.

“I was mainly concerned about how well it was going to stay in place!”

Joe is inspecting James’ head closely. “Well, I canna see the join!” he remarks. “Nice one, Eleanor!”

The shot changes, and we see that Eleanor is in the audience. She smiles when she realises she’s on camera.

“Eleanor, how did you decide what to do for your Dad’s makeover?” Trixie asks her.

Still looking up at the image of herself on the studio screen, Eleanor replies, “I just thought it would be fun to see what he looked like if he wasn’t going bald! I can’t really remember when he was like that naturally!”

“And what do you think?” Trixie enquires.

Eleanor puts a hand on one cheek and smiles again, as she tells us, “He looks really different! But, in a good way! I think he looks nice like that!”

“Well, thanks for making him over!” Trixie says. “Let’s see if it’s impressed the DAPAs!”

The DAPAs award James 6 points each, putting him slightly ahead of Tariq, on 12 points.

“I’m happy with that!” he tells Trixie when she asks, and he takes his place in the chairs to warm applause from the studio audience.

“Don’t go away!” Trixie instructs us. “We’ve got more transformations after the break on Britain’s Most Daring!”

Looking at Lissie, I can see she’s almost bursting with anticipation, finding it really frustrating to have to ‘wait and see’ what Gemma has done for her makeover. Her foot is going to be worn out if she has to wait too long!

I really wish Maddie hadn’t been so thoughtless yesterday evening! I also hope to goodness that Gemma’s appearance comes much earlier in this week’s programme than it did in last week’s!

Episode 3 (Part 2)
 

“Dad,” Maddie asks, “would you ever wear a wig?”

Lissie collapses in fits of giggles at the very idea of her father in a wig! I snicker and look at Phil. After 21 years together, I know him well, and I’m fairly sure he would just accept his hair loss gracefully. At least, I hope he would!

“Emma!” he says, looking at me, in mock anger. “Lissie I can understand, but I expect better from you!” he castigates.

“Sorry,” I snigger, “but, you have to admit, it is an amusing image!”

“Well, it’s not one you’re ever going to see!” he informs us. “Any of you!”

Thank goodness for that!

“Ohhh, go on Dad,” Lissie says, between giggles, “I’d love to see you in a wig!”

“I bet you would!” her father remarks.

The conversation is interrupted by the start of the theme music. All of us turn our attention back to the TV screen.

“Welcome back!” says Trixie. “This week on Britain’s Most Daring, our daredevils are getting a makeover. They’ve been dared to let their chosen makeover artist have a free hand, and we’ve already seen some interesting results!”

“Yes, we have!” Joe confirms. “It’s certainly been a bit hair-raising! Let’s see how wor next daredevil, Jaz, got on! Here’s Richie to tell us.”

Richie is wearing the same tatty jacket and jeans that we saw him in at the Midlands auditions. He is standing outside a hair salon on a typical urban high street.

“Jaz has come here to ask her regular hairdresser to help with the dare,” he informs us. “So, let’s take a look inside!”

Inside the salon, Jaz is sat in a standard hairdresser’s chair, in front of a mirror. Standing behind the chair is a young woman, similar in age to Jaz. Her initial greeting tells us that she is Jaz’s regular hairdresser.

“Hi, Jaz!” she says.

“Hello, Sasha!” Jaz replies

Sasha asks, “What’s it to be today? Your usual?”

“No! I want you to give me a new look!” Jaz tells her. “Anything you want!”

Sasha is clearly taken by surprise by this unexpected instruction from one of her regulars. “Okay,” she begins, before checking, “you really mean anything?”

“Yeah!” Jaz confirms. “Do whatever you think will look good!”

“Alright!” Sasha says, with great relish. “Let’s have a good look at you!”

Sasha spins the chair round so that Jaz is facing her. She takes a good, long look, and then uses her thumbs and forefingers to frame Jaz’s head. Throughout all this, Jaz is watching Sasha’s face, intrigued by the process. Using her fingers and a comb, Sasha sweeps Jaz’s hair into a new shape, before reconsidering and letting it return to its natural resting point. She takes a step back and looks Jaz in the eye.

“You’re not going to get mad with me, if you don’t like it, are you?!” she queries.

“No, of course I won’t!” Jaz assures her. “You just do what you want with it! Really!”

“Okay! I only asked, ’cos you’re more like a friend than a customer!” she tells Jaz. “So, I don’t want to do something that you hate!”

“You’re too good a hair stylist for that to happen!” Jaz enthuses.

“Aww, thanks!” Sasha smiles.

“And, anyway, I trust you completely! So, just do whatever you want!”

This final confirmation seems to be what Sasha needed, and Jaz’s compliments give her the encouragement to be bold in her ideas for Jaz’s new style. She sweeps Jaz’s hair across to one side and uses her other hand to lift the back off of Jaz’s shoulders. Satisfied with how it might look, she spins Jaz back around and sets about turning her idea into reality. Shots of Sasha washing, drying, cutting, and styling Jaz’s hair flash across the screen, until the dizzying images cease and Sasha spins Jaz around once more to take a look. She flicks a stray hair from off of Jaz’s forehead, takes a step back, and declares her task complete.

Where, before, Jaz’s brown hair had extended to a little below her shoulders, now it has been cut much, much shorter. The back ends at the top of her neck, whilst Sasha has given her a side-shave from just above her ears up to a point just below the top of her head. From there she has encouraged Jaz’s hair to flow to the opposite side of her head, with a front ‘curl’ falling down to her eyebrow. Sasha has completed the transformation by dyeing it platinum blonde.

“Oh, wow, Sasha,” exclaims Jaz, when she’s spun back around again and shown the full effect in the mirror, “that’s fantastic!” She extricates herself from the chair and gives Sasha a grateful hug.

There is rapturous applause as Jaz joins the two presenters. Trixie has a smile almost as wide as Jaz’s.

“That looks amazing!” she enthuses. “You’ll have to give me Sasha’s number!”

Jaz grins. The screen fills with a close-up of Sasha, in the audience. She, too, is grinning.

“The most important question: do you like it?” enquires Trixie.

“I absolutely love it!” Jaz enthuses. “It’s awesome!”

“Is it a style you’ve ever considered before?”

“No, I’d have never thought of having something like this in a million years!”

Trixie brings Sasha into the interview. “Sasha,” she asks, “what inspired you to create this amazing style for Jaz?”

“When she told me I could do anything,” Sasha says, “I just really wanted to repay her trust in me and give her something special. I’ve done her hair for years, and her style has always stayed the same. But I was convinced a proper short cut would suit her face, so I just came up with what you can see!”

“And why blonde?” questions Trixie.

“Blonde works much better on a cut like this,” Sasha opines. “Darker hair can look good when it’s cut short, but blonde really gives a much more dramatic effect!”

“It certainly does!” Trixie agrees. “When are you free?” She turns back to Jaz. “It works really well on you!” she comments, adding, “I’d love to see what she could do with mine!”

“Well, I think Trixie likes it!” says Joe. “But do the DAPAs?”

They seem to, judging by the 7 points they each award Jaz. Her total of 14 puts her into the lead, so far, this week.

“Brilliant! Really pleased!” she says of her score, and adds, “And I’m definitely keeping this style!”

“Let’s see our next daredevil!” Trixie says, as the applause for Jaz subsides. “Javid has the lowdown on how Tommy got on.”

As soon as we see the barber’s shop behind Javid, we know that Tommy has gone for a similar approach to his makeover that Jaz did for hers.

“Tommy has had the same haircut since he was a lad,” Javid informs us, “so it has taken a fair bit of courage for him to allow someone to have a free hand at giving him a different style. So, how will that go?”

We see a similar montage to the one we have recently watched, as Tommy is given a radical new haircut. Gone is the short-back-and-sides that he has always had, as the barber sets to work with the clippers on number 2. He does the whole of Tommy’s head, leaving him with a very short cut indeed. When he is shown the result, Tommy appears less than convinced. Nevertheless, he shakes the barber’s hand and smiles to the camera.

When he comes outside, he stops, feels his head, and tells Javid, “Blimey, my head feel’s cold!”

Tommy joins Joe and Trixie, and they wait for the applause to end.

“Tommy,” says Joe, “you looked a bit uncertain!”

“Yeah,” Tommy replies, “I’m used to my old style. This was a bit of a shock when I saw it!”

“How d’you like it now?”

“It’s okay!” says Tommy, in a tone of voice that isn’t fooling anyone.

“Are you going to keep it?”

“No,” Tommy admits, “I’ll let it grow back.”

“Okay,” Trixie interrupts, “let’s find out what the DAPAs make of it!”

Tommy gets a 7 from Dan, but only a 5 from Danielle, giving him a total of 12. He’s happy enough with that, knowing that he’s almost certain to be safe from the Dare-Off.

“I spent a day with Mia,” Trixie tells us, “and this is what we got up to.”

We see Trixie, in a fetching knee-length blue dress, topped with a navy cardigan. She is walking through a shopping precinct with Mia, wearing a jacket and jeans, at her side.

“Mia,” Trixie says, “what have you got in mind for your makeover?”

“It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, anyway,” she tells Trixie, “and this dare has given me the push I needed to get it done.”

What the ‘it’ is, we see when they stop in front of a tattoo parlour. The two women enter and walk up to the counter. The assistant, a middle-aged man with a goatee beard and arms covered in artwork, looks up.

“Hello,” he greets them, “how can I help?”

“I’d like a tattoo,” Mia states, fairly obviously.

“Did you have anything in particular in mind?” he asks.

“I’d like you to do me one that you think will look good on me,” she tells him, “and it has to be visible.”

He tries to get more of an idea of the sort of thing she might like, but Mia, realising that she mustn’t restrict him in any way, won’t say any more.

“I’m not sure I can help you!” he tells her, after getting nowhere with his questioning about her preference of design.

“Why?” she asks.

“You haven’t given me anything to go on, that’s why!”

She pushes him, asking, “Well, can’t you just do one that you think will look good?”

He decides there is no reasoning with her, so turns his attention to Trixie.

“Can you tell your friend here that getting a tattoo is not some sort of game!” he says to the bemused presenter. “You can’t just wash it off if you don’t like it!”

“Well, obviously!” Mia interjects. “I’m not stupid!”

Ignoring her, the man tells Trixie, “I don’t think she’s thought this through. Maybe it’s best if you come back when she has!”

“What d’you think she is, my Mum or something?” Mia snaps, indignantly. “I know what I want: I want a tattoo! And I want you to do it, now!”

“Perhaps, if you show me some designs, I can give you an idea of the sort of thing that she might like,” suggests Trixie, trying to defuse the situation.

The assistant agrees, and, presumably, Trixie gives him sufficient help for him to be happy to give Mia a tattoo like she’s demanding, because we see him setting up his equipment. He has decided to give her a design on her lower arm, since she asked for it to be visible. We see a series of clips of him at work on her arm, as Trixie watches on with interest. As the design is progressing, it is difficult to tell what it is, but one thing is clear: it is pretty large!

When he has finished, Mia holds her arm up to the camera to show us the result. On the inside of her arm, from her wrist to her elbow joint, she has a floral design. There is a central flower head, in a vibrant yellow, surrounded above and to the sides by leaves. Below the main flower are two smaller pink flowers, and the design is completed by a number of beads hanging from lines that stretch across between the two smaller flower heads.

“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it!” she says to the assistant, apparently still narked at his earlier reluctance to do what she wanted.

Trixie apologises for Mia’s rudeness, adding, “You’ve done a really good job! I think it looks brilliant! Thank you, so much!”

In the studio, Mia shows off her tattoo.

“Wow!”, exclaims Joe. “That’s an impressive piece of work!”

“I really like it!” Mia tells him.

“Have you had any comments from friends and family?” Trixie asks.

“My Dad hates it,” Mia confesses, “but everyone else likes it. Even my Mum!”

“I wonder whether the DAPAs do,” Joe says.

The DAPAs do like it. Dan gives Mia 8 points and Danielle awards 7, putting Mia into the lead with a total of 15. She smiles and blows the DAPAs a kiss. Dan catches it, whilst Danielle looks at him with a stern expression on her face.

“That’s our new leader, Mia!” Trixie exclaims. “Join us after the break for more Britain’s Most Daring! See you soon!”

“Dad …?” begins Maddie.

“No, you are not getting a tattoo!” her father second-guesses.

“Oh!” she says, disappointment etched onto her face.

The trouble is, it’s less than two months to her birthday, her eighteenth birthday; then, there’ll be no stopping her!

Episode 3 (Part 3)
 

If anyone had told me I’d be spending my Saturday evening watching a makeover show, I’d have told them they were mad. But here I am, doing just that! This, though, is a very different makeover show to the usual run-of-the-mill ones that I dislike so much. This one is edgy and unpredictable, and is made all-the-more exciting for us because we are waiting to see what our friend Gemma has had done. At least three of us are; Maddie already knows, because she saw Gemma yesterday afternoon, after she’d had her makeover.

“You don’t think Gemma got a tattoo, do you?” Lissie asks.

Maddie stays silent, having promised Gemma she wouldn’t say anything before the makeover is revealed on the show.

“I wouldn’t have thought so!” I reply. “She always used to say how much she didn’t like them.”

“Well, in that case, she won’t win this week,” declares Lissie, “not after what Mia’s done!”

“It doesn’t matter, though, does it,” her Dad reminds her, “so long as she keeps out of the bottom three and avoids the Dare-Off!”

“I know! I just want her to win again!”

“You join us as we watch our daredevils undergoing a makeover this week on Britain’s Most Daring. I’m Trixie Stonehill …”

“… and I’m Joe Denecker. We’ve got plenty more of wor daredevils to see, so let’s press on! Here’s Lisa to tell us about Matt’s week.”

Buxom blonde Mancunian, Lisa, is sat in her car, parked at the side of an ordinary-looking street with rows of terraced houses along either side. She is in the driving seat and we, vicariously through the camera operator, are in the front passenger seat. She looks across at us and does her piece to camera.

“I’m outside Matt’s house here in Bolton,” she informs us. “He’s asked two of his friends to do his makeover for him. He’s told them they can do anything they want. I’ve come to check that he means what he says and to find out what they’ve got planned for him. So, we’d best go in!”

We follow her to the front door, which, upon her knocking, is opened by Matt.

“Lisa, come in!”

We enter and go through to the back room. There are two other people, a man and a woman, both in their late twenties by the look of it.

“Let me introduce you,” says Matt. “This is Shanice …”

The woman smiles and says, “Hi!”

“… and this is Digger!”

“Alright?” says Digger, sounding very Mancunian.

“How do you know these people?” Lisa asks Matt.

“Digger’s my best mate, I’ve known him since school,” Matt explains, “and Shanice is my brother’s missus.”

“So, what have you two got planned for Matt?” Lisa enquires.

“We’re going to totally change how he looks,” reveals Digger, with a grin. “We want him to win this dare, so we’re going for maximum impact!”

“How does that sound, Matt?” Lisa asks our daredevil, who is looking a little apprehensive.

“It sounds good,” he says, “I think!” He laughs.

Lisa provides an intermittent voiceover for the montage that follows. We see first Shanice and then Digger set to work on Matt.

“Shanice has done some hairdressing in the past, so she’s been entrusted with the task of restyling Matt’s hair … “

We watch as Shanice gets the clipper out and sets it to number 0. She shaves most of Matt’s head, but leaves a narrow strip that runs down the middle of his head from his forehead to the top of his neck.

“… Shanice is giving Matt a Mohican. It’s a radically different style to any that he’s had before …”

Once Shanice is finished, Digger takes up position in front of Matt.

“… Digger’s experience in a tattoo and piercing parlour is what he brings to the dare …”

We see Digger brandishing his tattoo gun, and inking two identical red roses, one above and slightly forward of each ear on the newly-shaved parts of Matt’s head.

“… The red rose that Digger is tattooing onto Matt’s head is the traditional symbol of Lancashire …”

Digger finishes the tattoos and admires his work.

“… With the tattoos finished, Digger sets to work on the other part of his plan …”

We see Digger insert a cannula needle through the bottom of Matt’s eyebrow and out through the top. He then begins putting a curved barbell in place.

“Digger has decided that an eyebrow piercing is the perfect finish to Matt’s new look. But I’m not sure Matt is keen on the idea!”

As Digger continues to work on the piercing, Matt grimaces and winces. This, we suspect, is more than he was bargaining for! But there’s nothing he can do, and the montage ends with Matt standing up, flanked by Shanice and Digger, all looking into the camera with their thumbs up.

“Give him a warm welcome, everyone,” urges Trixie, “it’s Matt!”

The welcome Matt gets from the audience is more than warm, it is scorching. The audience, at least, are mightily impressed by the extreme makeover he has been put through.

“Matt, Matt,” begins Joe, “what have they done to you?”

Matt laughs. “I know!” he replies. “Mad!”

“Did you have any idea what you were letting yourself in for?”

“I knew Shanice would do something with my hair, but I didn’t really know what Digger was planning!”

“It’s certainly striking!” Trixie remarks.

“I don’t mind it!” he tells her.

“Are you keeping the whole look?” she asks him.

“That’s the clever thing,” he confides. “It can all be covered over, eventually. The piercing can come out and the hole will heal, and if I grow my hair back the tatts get covered over!”

Whether revealing that was a mistake or not remains to be seen. The DAPAs may knock Matt’s score down a bit now they know it isn’t necessarily as permanent and radical as it first appeared.

“Well, you know what comes next,” Trixie tells him, “it’s time for the DAPAs to do their stuff!”

An 8 from Danielle is followed by another 8 from Dan, giving Matt a total of 16, which puts him in front, knocking Mia off the top.

A worthy round of applause follows, before Trixie says, “Well done, Matt, you’re our new leader!”

“Magic!” says Matt. “Digger’ll be made up! Big thanks to him and Shanice!”

“Matt everybody, … Matt!” cries Trixie, initiating another round of applause.

“Well, that’s going to take some beating!” remarks Joe. “So, let’s see if Mitchell is up to the task. Trixie, here, went with him, and here’s her report.”

When we see Trixie this time, she is wearing a cream roll-neck jumper over tight-fitting jeans. The black beanie hat she has on tells us that this dare was filmed on a cold day. She is inside a shopping centre, strolling along slowly, and once she has passed the camera, we see she is walking towards Mitchell and a young woman who is with him. She stops when she reaches them.

The shot changes to a close-up of the three, as Trixie greets Mitchell. “Mitchell, hi, who have you got to help with your dare?”

“This is my girlfriend, Sammi,” he says, introducing the young woman to us. “She’s going to be doing my makeover.”

“Nice to meet you, Sammi,” Trixie says. “What have you got planned for Mitchell?”

Sammi reveals far more than Mitchell wants her to, when she answers, “Well, I know the sort of look that Mitch likes, and I think that’s why he trusts me not to do anything too over-the-top. So, I’m going to sort of tweak his usual look a bit and give it a fresher appearance.”

“Well,” Trixie says to camera, “let’s see how that goes!”

Our next montage begins with the three of them in a clothes shop, as Sammi selects some casual trousers and a floral-print shirt. The scene then changes, as the rest of the montage appears to have been filmed in the room of a house somewhere. Initially, Sammi is applying fake tan to all the exposed parts of Mitchell’s body. We then see her adding some lighter highlights to his mousy-brown hair, before having him put on the trousers and shirt we saw her select earlier. The final shot sees Mitchell posing with his new ‘tweaked’ look beside a smiling Sammi.

Back in the studio, Trixie welcomes Mitchell in her usual exuberant manner. Once the applause dies down, the interview can begin.

“Well, that shirt’s got a lot to say for itself,” exclaims Joe, “and it’s saying it loud and clear!”

Mitchell grins, but doesn’t say anything.

“Has Sammi come up with the sort of look you were expecting?” Trixie asks.

“Yeah,” Mitchell says, “I pretty much knew what sort of thing she’d do. It’s the sort of look she likes on me.”

“But is it the sort of look the DAPAs like on you?” asks Joe, giving Dan and Danielle their cue.

The answer to Joe’s question is immediate and negative. Danielle instantly hits her keypad and awards just 3 points, whilst Dan quickly follows suit. The total of 6 points is comfortably the lowest score this week, and we can be pretty sure that Mitchell is going to be taking part in tonight’s Dare-Off.

“I think you might have paid the price for Sammi’s predictability!” Trixie comments. “Never mind,” she consoles him, before eliciting a polite round of applause from the audience. As this starts to fade, she continues, “I’m not the only one who’s been out with some of our daredevils this week, am I Joe?”

“No,” he confirms, “I popped back up to the North-East and hooked up with last week’s winner, Gemma. Take a look at this!”

Good! Lissie is about to be put out of her misery! She pulls herself a little closer to the TV and watches excitedly.

We see Joe, dressed in his usual t-shirt and slightly-worn jeans, inside a hairdressing salon, where Gemma is stood with a couple of girls her age. One of them, at least, looks to be a hairdresser.

“So, Gemma,” begins Joe, “who have we got here?”

Gemma indicates the two other girls in turn. “This is Tamsin,” she says of the shorter, blonde girl, “and this is Cherise.” The taller, auburn-haired girl waves enthusiastically.

“And they’re helping you with your dare?”

“Tamsin is going to do my makeover for me,” Gemma informs him, and us, “and Cherise is here for a bit of moral support!”

“Cherise is Gemma’s best friend,” Maddie explains to us. “I don’t know Tamsin.”

Tamsin sits Gemma in the chair and sets to work. We see another hairdressing montage, during which there is a clip that might be significant, especially if the DAPAs have been paying close attention: at one point, Tamsin appears as if she is about to cut a plentiful amount of Gemma’s hair, but before she can begin, Cherise stops her and whispers something in her ear which makes her change her mind and leave Gemma’s long blonde hair intact. By the end of the montage, Gemma’s blonde hair has become multicoloured, with Tamsin having created a rainbow design that runs from red on one side of her head through the whole spectrum to purple on the other side. It is certainly striking!

“Oh my God!” cries Lissie. “I can’t believe she’s done that!”

“I told you!” Maddie says.

“Dearie me,” Phil comments, “I hope it washes out easily!”

“What do you reckon?” Joe asks Cherise.

“It’s different!” says Cherise, in that polite way that tells us she doesn’t like it but doesn’t want to offend either Gemma or Tamsin.

“It’s certainly that!” Joe addresses this last comment to us, the viewers at home, and he raises an eyebrow knowingly.

“Give it up for Gemma,” urges Trixie, as the teenager emerges from backstage, rainbow locks bouncing as she walks over to Trixie and Joe.

It is Joe who begins the interview. “Gemma,” he says, “what did you think when you first saw what Tamsin had done to you?”

“I was a bit surprised,” Gemma admits, “but there was not a lot I could do about it, so I just decided to make the best of it!”

“I imagine you’ve been getting plenty of attention!” comments Trixie.

“Yeah, I have,” Gemma tells her. “People keep checking it out. Some don’t like it, but I think plenty do.”

“Do you?” asks Trixie.

“Kind of!” Gemma replies, without really giving away her true feelings about her vivid hairstyle.

“She doesn’t!” Maddie informs us. “She said she’s going to wash it out as soon as she gets back from the studio this weekend.”

Joe has picked up on the non-committed nature of her response. “Well, let’s hope the DAPAs are a bit more certain. What d’you reckon D ’n’ D?”

Dan reckons it’s worth 6 points, whilst Danielle awards 5, making a total of 11 points. That puts Gemma in the bottom three as things stand.

“How does that compare with what you were expecting?” Trixie asks Gemma.

“It’s a bit lower,” admits Gemma, “I was hoping for more than that!”

After Gemma has taken her place amongst the daredevils who we have already seen tonight, Trixie recaps the situation and takes us into the next ad-break.

“So, we’re about halfway through our makeovers, and it’s Gemma, Tariq, and Mitchell facing the Live Dare-Off as it stands. But it could all change, so join us, after the break, to see the next set of daredevils being transformed on Britain’s Most Daring!”

Lissie looks across at her Dad, with a concerned expression on her face. Once again, he reads his daughter’s thoughts and answers her question before she has even asked it.

“Gemma will be fine!” he reassures her. “It’s only going to need one more to mess up and she’s away from the Dare-Off. One of the others is bound sure to get a worse score!”

I can see that Lissie knows her father is right, but I sense that she won’t be able to relax until Gemma is actually out of the bottom three.

Episode 3 (Part 4)
 

“Why did they give Gemma such a low score?” Lissie asks.

“Because Cherise wouldn’t let Tamsin cut Gemma’s hair,” Maddie explains.

I offer my own insight: “I think that’s why Cherise was really there. Not for moral support, but to make sure Tamsin didn’t do anything Gemma didn’t want. It was quite clever of Gemma to get someone else to tell Tamsin ‘no’ so that it didn’t look like Gemma was setting a limit, but I think the DAPAs saw through it.”

Phil nods in agreement. “It’s only the fact that her rainbow hair is so attention-grabbing that stopped her getting a really low score!” he comments.

“I’m not surprised she didn’t let them cut her hair!” says Maddie. “She’s always had long hair for as long as I can remember.”

“She used to hate even having it trimmed,” I remember aloud.

“But if she wants to do well on this show,” Phil points out, “she’s going to have do things that she maybe would prefer not to do!”

Perhaps Phil should have a word with Gemma!

“Welcome back to Britain’s Most Daring!” beams Trixie, as we return for the next part of the show.

“We’re watching wor daredevils get a makeover,” Joe reminds us, “and, so far, it’s Matt and his punk rocker look that’s top of the charts!”

“There are plenty more makeovers to see,” Trixie tells us, “so let’s head over to Wales and join Lowri, who spent a day with Dylan.”

The raven-haired Welsh presenter is seated at a café table alongside Dylan. Sitting opposite them at the table are two young people, a dark-haired boy and a fair-haired girl, both of whom look to be about Dylan’s age.

“I’ve come to Swansea Uni,” Lowri informs us, “where Dylan has enlisted the help of a couple of students from the drama department, Rhod and Tish.” She turns to the two students and asks, “So, what have you two got in mind for Dylan?”

Tish does the talking for the pair. “We’re going to raid the costume store to come up with a really unique look for Dylan, and then use our theatrical make-up skills, such as they are, to give the whole thing a ‘wow’ factor!”

“That sounds awesome!” Lowri exclaims. “Let’s see what you can come up with then!”

We move into a large room that has a series of walk-in wardrobes along one wall. Rhod and Tish are going through the extensive range of costumes and clothes looking for possibilities. Inevitably, Lowri is in with them, offering her own suggestions, which they are politely ignoring. She looks at the camera and shrugs.

To pass the time as Rhod and Tish search for the look they want, Lowri finds out how Dylan is feeling about putting himself in the hands of these two drama students.

“It’ll be fine!” he assures her, and possibly himself. “I don’t know Rhod, but Tish is one of our Dare Clubbers, and she’s really imaginative! So, I can’t wait to see what she comes up with!”

What she and Rhod have come up with is revealed in all its glory: Dylan, we see, is wearing black formal trousers, a white pin-stripe shirt, a dark-red velvet waistcoat, and a black cape; the effect is completed with a top hat. To look at him, he could very well be the inspiration for the next Doctor Who!

We watch as Tish sets to work with the theatrical make-up.

“Have you done this before?” asks Lowri.

“Not on a real person!” Tish informs us.

Lowri grimaces to the camera, encouraging us to wonder what exactly Tish has used her make-up skills on so far.

Tish works at forming a realistic-looking scar across Dylan’s left cheek, and makes pock-marks on his hands and face, creating the impression that he is suffering from some unpleasant skin disease. As she works on him, Lowri chats with her.

“So, Tish, you’re part of the Dare Club, too?”

“Yeah. I went with Dylan to the auditions for the show, actually, but I couldn’t do the cawl dare. I was gutted! I’d have loved to be on the show! I’m so jealous of Dylan!”

“The cawl was too much for you, was it, then?”

“No, it wasn’t that! …” Tish begins.

Dylan interrupts, to explain, “Tish has a load of allergies to foodstuffs, so she has to be really careful what she eats! Don’t you, Tish?”

“Yeah, and I’d never heard of cawl, so I didn’t have a clue what was in it, so I couldn’t risk it! Some of my allergies are really serious; I nearly died one time, when I ate something in a restaurant that had something in that I reacted to. If there hadn’t been an off-duty paramedic at the next table, I wouldn’t be here talking to you!”

“It’s a real shame there was that cawl dare,” Dylan comments, “because Tish would have been brilliant on the show! She’ll do anything; I mean, literally, anything! She’s way more daring than me; I need to be pushed, but she’s straight in there!”

“What’s the most daring thing you’ve done then, Tish?” Lowri enquires.

“Oh, I dunno, um…,” Tish considers, “Dylan, what d’you reckon? That time on the athletics track?”

“Yeah, definitely that!” he confirms.

“Go on!” Lowri encourages.

“We were at the Uni athletics track,” Tish tells us, “one evening after they’d finished training. There were only a few of the athletes still about, and I got dared to run a lap of the track … naked!”

“And she did it!” Dylan laughs. “And then, when she’d finished, she launched herself onto the high jump mattress thing, and just laid there!”

Tish finishes Dylan’s make-up, and presents him to the camera, for our inspection.

“Well,” remarks Lowri, “I wouldn’t want to meet you in a dark alley!”

We return to the studio, and Dylan walks on, giving his new character an exaggerated limp, which causes the audience to whoop and cheer even more. It is certainly some entrance!

“Good grief, Dylan!” Joe exclaims. “I would shake your hand, but it looks like I might catch something!”

Dylan thrusts out a hand, enticingly, anyway. “Go on,” he challenges Joe, “I dare you!” The audience love it, and cheer loudly.

Joe rises to the challenge, shakes Dylan’s hand, and then wipes off the ‘disease’ on Trixie’s arm! Trixie responds by giving him a slap on his wrist.

Once the hilarity has finished, Trixie asks Dylan, “Did you travel up here looking like that?”

He grins and tells her he did, coming up from Wales by train. The big studio screen backs up his tale, as a series of selfies he’s taken on the journey appear for us all to see.

“Fantastic!” Trixie squeals with delight, unable to contain her enthusiasm.

“Surely that’s got to impress the DAPAs!” Joe comments. “Hasn’t it?”

We go over to the DAPAs expecting to come back with a new leader. When Dan awards 9 points it’s looking a certainty, but then comes a moment of controversy. Danielle presses her keypad and the number 6 comes up on the screen above her head. The audience boo vociferously, but Danielle is adamant. So, a total score of 15 means Dylan falls just short of Matt’s score. Dylan looks visibly crushed by Danielle’s low score.

Trixie and Joe are clearly surprised and seem momentarily lost for words. But it’s a brief moment, and Joe is soon back to his usual ebullient self.

“Well, DAPA Danielle seems to have got the hump for some reason!” he says. “A transformation like that has got to be worth more than 6!”

Danielle shakes her head defiantly. Dylan’s makeover has obviously failed to impress her for some reason. The audience boo again. In their minds, Danielle has become the pantomime villain.

“Give it up for Dylan!” Trixie encourages, turning the boos to cheers. “We loved it, no matter what the DAPAs say!”

“Time to head to Scotland, next,” Joe says, “and we’re getting two for the price of one! Wor Lorna’s been a busy lass, chaperoning Ayla and Eilidh.”

“Aye,” says Lorna, in a link that has obviously been filmed to respond to Joe’s scripted introduction, “I spent a day in Glasgow with Eilidh and a day here in Edinburgh with Ayla. And d’you know what, all I got for my trouble was this wee tartan bobble hat!” She shows a bobble hat, in red and blue tartan, to the camera, before thrusting it over the top of her head. It completes a wrapped-up look that tells of another cold day’s filming.

We see a montage that combines the makeovers of the two Scottish daredevils …

… Ayla is at an upmarket dress shop in Edinburgh; Eilidh is wandering around a street market in Glasgow with an older woman, who she introduces as her Aunty Anne, her makeover artist. In the shop, Ayla has the help of a ladies’ dresser, in the shape of thirty-something Mags. We see Anne picking up a selection of items from various market stalls, whilst Mags is shown selecting garments from within the store …

… After gathering up her selections, Mags takes Ayla off to a large, salubrious fitting room, to start putting together a look that she thinks will suit Ayla but at the same time give her a very different visual personality …

… Eilidh and Anne are back at home – we don’t know whose – and Anne is picking through the items she’s bought …

… We then see both girls having various garments and accessories tried on, taken off or re-arranged, before a split screen shot shows the finished looks side-by-side …

… Eilidh is wearing a mish-mash of items that creates a confused look over all. There’s a yellow blouse underneath a green-and-blue-tartan cardigan. With this, Anne has gone for a pair of slacks in a slightly dubious grey colour, and topped the outfit off with a navy-blue beret. If you were being unkind, you might think Eilidh’s been dressed by someone without any help from their guide-dog! …

… Mags has made full use of Ayla’s curvy figure, dressing her in a tight light-blue, calf-length skirt that shows off her hips, under a darker-blue mini-dress with yellow stars glittering all over it. The dress has a daring neckline, that plunges almost to Ayla’s navel, giving her cleavage plenty of opportunity to grab your attention and meaning Ayla has had to forego her bra. Mags has given Ayla a feather boa that she can use to cover some of the bare skin if she wishes.

“Well, that’s our wee girls,” Lorna says, as we return to the specially-filmed link. “Trixie, back to you in the studio.”

“Thank-you, Lorna!” says Trixie, in response. “Here they are: Ayla and Eilidh!”

Once the two Scots have taken their places, Joe says, “Ayla, let’s start with you!”

Ayla’s smile fades as a blush starts to redden her face when Joe asks, “Don’t you feel the cold dressed like that?”

“No,” she manages to say, “we Scots girls are made of tough stuff, you know!”

The audience respond warmly, which is unsurprising given how Ayla has been one of their favourites right from the start.

“Have you ever worn an outfit as daring as that before?” Trixie asks, doing her best, in her subtler manner, to keep Ayla’s blush going.

“No, I haven’t,” Ayla confesses, “but, you know, now I’ve tried it, I’d be a lot more confident going out like this!”

“Can you say the same, Eilidh?” Joe asks, mischievously.

“Definitely not!” Eilidh states. “There’s no way I’d go anywhere looking like this!”

“Is Aunty Anne registered blind?” he jokes.

Eilidh shakes her head, but is clearly struggling to stifle a giggle. “Stop it!” she pleads.

There’s no chance of that! “Did she get her inspiration from Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat?” he quips.

“You’re gonnae get me in so much trouble!” Eilidh tells him.

“Well, before he does,” Trixie interrupts, “let’s go over to the DAPAs!”

The DAPAs both award Ayla 6 points, which earns them another sustained booing from the audience, giving her 12 in total; Eilidh’s makeover has impressed them less, with both Dan and Danielle marking her 4 out of 10, for a total of 8 points. That leaves Eilidh in the bottom three at the moment, facing the Dare-Off.

And gets Gemma out of trouble, much to Lissie’s relief!

Neither girl is happy with their score, but at least Eilidh is unsurprised by it. Ayla is not impressed with the DAPAs rating of her makeover, and the audience is with her all the way.

Once they’ve taken their seats, the show heads into its next ad-break.

“Join us for the last 3 daredevils’ makeovers,” says Trixie, “when we’ll see whether anyone can top Matt’s effort, and whether Tariq, Eilidh, and Mitchell can avoid tonight’s Live Dare-Off on Britain’s Most Daring!”

“At least Gemma doesn’t have to do the Dare-Off!” says a smiling Lissie. We nod.

“I think Dylan should be winning,” remarks Maddie, “don’t you, Mam?!”

“Yes,” I agree, “he should! I don’t understand why Danielle marked him so low!”

“I think,” begins Phil, “it’s because all the stuff he had on, the costume and the make-up, is easily removed. So, it’s less daring than having your eyebrow pierced or getting a tattoo.”

I hadn’t thought of it like that!

Episode 3 (Part 5)
 

Maddie’s phone warbles and she looks to see what has arrived on it. She bursts out laughing when she sees what she’s been sent. Lissie gets up and rushes across to take a look, and she, too, collapses in a fit of giggles. Maddie comes over to the sofa and shows me and Phil just what our two girls have found so amusing. We chuckle as we watch a five-second clip of the end of the theme tune to the old children’s programme, Rainbow: ‘paint the whole world with a rainbow’, with Gemma, complete with rainbow hair, superimposed on it!

“Who sent it you?” I ask Maddie.

“Stacie,” she replies, before another warble distracts her. After checking the latest incoming message, she enlightens us further. “Oh, right,” she says, “Cherise sent it to Stacie, and Stacie thought I’d like it!”

“Send it me!” Lissie instructs her sister. Maddie does, and Lissie’s phone pings to confirm the clip’s arrival. She immediately plays it again and laughs at it once more.

We hear the familiar theme music, telling us that the ad-break is over. The phones are put down, as we all turn our attention back to the TV screen.

“Welcome back to Britain’s Most Daring,” Trixie says again, “where our daredevils are getting a makeover.”

“We’ve still got three more to see,” Joe reminds us, “so nothing is decided yet, but Tariq, Eilidh, and Mitchell are heading for tonight’s Live Dare-Off as things stand.”

“Let’s see our next makeover!” Trixie continues. “Aleksandra has the story of Shanumi’s week.”

The effervescent Aleksandra is standing at the bottom of a tower-block on a rather run-down looking inner-city estate. She is providing an eye-pleasing contrast to her drab surroundings, dressed as she is in a vivid pink fluffy jumper worn over a pair of slim-fit smart jeans.

“Welcome to Tottenham!” she says, her radiant smile hiding any negative thoughts she might have about her surroundings. “Somewhere up there,” she points to the upper half of the tower-block behind her, “is Shanumi. I think she is hiding from me!” She turns and heads into the ground floor of the block, beckoning us to follow. Once we are in, she calls the lift, and we step into it with her.

The scene changes to the outside of a flat, somewhere in the tower. Aleksandra knocks on the door and calls out, “Hello, … Shanumi?!”

A few moments later, the door opens and Shanumi appears. “Oh my God,” she shrieks, “what are you doing here?”

If Aleksandra is taken aback by Shanumi’s reaction, she doesn’t show it, simply saying, “We have come to see your makeover.”

“That ain’t happening!” Shanumi repeats the same phrase she uttered when the Dare Deliverer announced this week’s dare.

The scene cuts abruptly to inside the flat, where Shanumi and Aleksandra are sitting on the sofa, albeit at either end of the three-seater.

“So,” Aleksandra is saying, “why are you saying you are not getting a makeover?”

“This is me!” Shanumi tells her. “My look is who I am! I ain’t changing that for no-one!”

“But it is just for a dare!” Aleksandra encourages her.

“I’ll do loads of crazy stuff for a dare,” declares Shanumi, “but I’m not changing the whole me! The way I look, what I wear, the way I have my hair, my make-up, all that stuff says ‘this is Shanumi’, and I ain’t changing who I am!”

“We can’t persuade you to do just a little change?” Aleksandra tries to tempt her.

Shanumi is adamant, “No! It ain’t happening!”

Another abrupt scene change brings us back to where we began this segment, outside the tower-block. Aleksandra is looking a little perplexed, but still managing to maintain her radiance at the same time.

“Well, Shanumi is not coming out,” she informs us, “and she is not having a makeover, so no more fun for me today!” She pouts and the camera lingers on her before we return to the studio.

Shanumi is already standing between Joe and Trixie. Presumably, the show’s producer and director weren’t sure how the audience would react to Shanumi’s refusal to do this week’s dare, and so decided against having her walk on to what could be an embarrassing response.

“Shanumi,” Trixie begins, “you told us in the film why you weren’t prepared to get a makeover done. Are you regretting that now?”

“No!” Shanumi says, forcefully. “I have to be true to myself, so I knew as soon as the dare was announced that I wasn’t going to do it.”

“Fair play!” comments Trixie. “Power to you for sticking to your guns!”

“Well, we know what the DAPAs are going to do,” Joe says, “but let’s just confirm it anyway!”

The DAPAs both press 0 on their keypads, giving Shanumi the only score possible for a refused dare. Before we return to focus on Shanumi, we get a brief shot of Tariq looking relieved that he has finally escaped the Dare-Off.

“So, it’s the Dare-Off for you, Shanumi!” Trixie tells her, sending her over to the seats, to the sound of very muted applause.

“Two more to go,” Joe informs us. “First up, here’s Olly with Bradley’s makeover.”

Olly has decided to give himself a makeover for this week’s show, and is wearing a collar and tie together with a pair of dark trousers; it only serves to make his extravagant hairstyle look even more incongruous. He is standing outside a semi-detached house in a quiet street.

“I’m here in Chipping Sodbury, outside Bradley’s place,” he tells us. “Let’s go and see what he’s up to!”

We follow Olly to the front door and, after he rings the bell, we are welcomed inside by Bradley. We go into the front room, where we see a woman with a young girl sitting on her lap.

“That’s Clare, my wife,” Bradley says, by way of introduction, “and Grace, our daughter.” Grace looks bewildered and rather scared by the intrusion of Olly and the camera crew, and clings to her mum.

Olly turns to address Bradley. “So,” he says, “what have you got in mind for your makeover?”

“Well, my first thought was to go along to the tattoo place,” he tells us, “but we’ve decided against that. Then I thought I might have my head shaved, but maybe not!”

Behind him, we see Clare shaking her head. It is becoming clear who wears the trousers in this house! It seems that Bradley’s makeover options have been severely restricted by Clare.

“In the end, we’ve decided that I’m going to go into Bristol and get myself fitted out at the top gentleman’s tailors by Cabot Circus.”

That’s where the scene changes to: inside the tailors, where an elderly assistant is measuring Bradley for his new outfit. We see a rapid series of still shots of Bradley being fitted for what quickly becomes apparent is an evening suit, complete with bow-tie.

“Give it up for Bradley!” urges Trixie, as a very dapper-looking Bradley steps out, to begin his walk across the studio. As he reaches halfway, we see Dan and Danielle nodding approvingly.

“You scrub up alright!” quips Joe.

“You’re not looking so bad yourself!” retorts Bradley.

Joe chuckles, giving himself time to think of a comeback. “I’ve been taking lessons from the DAPAs,” he says, “but I reckon you’re a ready-made replacement if we get fed up with them!”
Dan and Danielle look astonished at the possibility of being replaced! “Let’s see how much your makeover has impressed them!”

Not very, that’s how much! The DAPAs give Bradley just 7 points in total, with Dan awarding 4 of those. It means Bradley is in the bottom three, but Eilidh escapes the Dare-Off.

“Are you wishing you’d gone to the tattoo parlour now?” Trixie asks.

“I’d have been looking for a new wife, if I’d done that!” Bradley tells her. “I’ll take my chance in the Dare-Off again!”

Once the applause for Bradley has subsided, Trixie introduces the final makeover: “Against our better judgement, we let Joe here loose in London, where he tagged along with Keenan. Here’s what happened.”

Joe, in his trademark shirt and slightly-worn skinny jeans, is sat on the top of a children’s playground climbing-frame, with Keenan next to him.

“Keenan,” he says, “have you found anyone to give you a makeover yet? Only, I’ve got a bit of time on my hands, if you’re interested …?”

“You’re alright, mate,” Keenan tells him, “my sister’s gonna do it!” He looks down. “Aren’t you, Lu?”

The camera pans down to ground level, where a woman, who looks a lot like Keenan facially, is standing with her arms crossed, clearly unimpressed by the antics of the two lads.

The next shot shows the three of them walking across the park, talking as they go.

“Lucy,” Joe asks Keenan’s sister, “what have you got in mind for your little brother?”

“I’m gonna transport him back to his teenage years!” she says, with a twinkle in her eye and a mischievous grin. “Back to the days of the Special K!”

“Special K?” asks Joe, seeking an explanation for our benefit and his likely amusement.

“That’s what he used to call himself, when he was doing his DJ-ing!” Lucy tells Joe.

“You didn’t really, did you?” he asks Keenan.

“’Fraid so!” Keenan replies. “It seemed like a good idea at the time!”

“Well, I canna wait to see the Special K back in action!” Joe tells us, with a broad grin.

A montage follows, which shows Lucy scouring various market stalls for the items she wants, whilst the two lads trail along behind, larking about: they play frisbee with a baseball cap at one stall; we see Joe giving Keenan a piggyback past another stall; the two of them are playing tag around a bemused trader at a third stall; and, whilst Lucy is inspecting some decidedly dodgy-looking jewellery, they are taking it in turns to try to place a baseball cap on her head, much to her annoyance!

After all that, we watch as Lucy begins transforming Keenan into Special K. Once she’s finished, Keenan looks in the mirror and appears both horrified and embarrassed, as we hear Joe hooting with laughter in the background.

“Wow, that’s some look!” Joe says, when we see the two of them together. “What have you done to upset your sister that much?!”

“Ladies and gentlemen, Special K is in the house!” announces Trixie. Keenan walks out to a brief medley of club hits from the early 2000s. He is wearing a light grey trackie, white trainers, a back-to-front baseball cap, and has an overly-large medallion round his neck.

“Special,” Joe begins, suppressing a snigger, “how do you feel?”

“Totally ridiculous!” Keenan admits.

“Is this what you wore when you DJ-ed?” Trixie asks him.

“Sadly, it is!” he confesses. “But, fortunately, it was nice and dark in the clubs!”

“What do you think the DAPAs are going to make of it?” she asks him.

“I don’t know; by the looks of them, I don’t think they’ve ever been in a club!”

“Ohh, I don’t know,” comments Joe, “I reckon Danielle’s out on the town every night!” She shakes her head and wags her finger at Joe.

“DAPAs, give us your scores!” he instructs them.

The DAPAs both award Keenan 4 points, giving him 8 in total, which is just enough to keep him safe, at Bradley’s expense.

“Maybe that should be ‘Not-So-Special K’!” Joe jokes.

Keenan laughs, but we can see that he’s relieved to have escaped the Dare-Off by the skin of his teeth. He takes his place in the seated line-up of daredevils, as Trixie confirms this week’s results.

“So, that means our winner this week is Matt!” she announces, encouraging the audience to give Matt a hard-earned round of applause. She continues, “After the break, we’ll find out who we’re going to be saying goodbye to, as Bradley, Mitchell, and Shanumi take on the Live Dare-Off. Don’t go anywhere, we’re back with more Britain’s Most Daring after this!”

“What’s the point of going on a show called Britain’s Most Daring and refusing to do the dare?” Lissie asks, referring to Shanumi’s odd decision.

“Well, she didn’t actually do the dare to get on the show in the first place, did she?” Maddie reminds us. “She just made an eel out of lots of pieces!”

“She deserves to go out!” Lissie decides.

“I hope she doesn’t!” I state. “I like the fact she stood up for herself the way she did!”

Episode 3 (Part 6)
 

“Who do you want to go out, then?” Lissie asks me.

“I don’t mind out of the other two. Both of them are letting themselves be controlled too much by their partners!” I declare.

“But isn’t that just putting their relationship above the need to do well at their dare?” Phil asks me. “As they should do!” he adds.

“Yeah,” I acknowledge, “but there should be some give and take in any relationship, and the give seems to be all one way with them!”

“Maybe the ‘give’ was letting them go on the show in the first place. That’s quite an intrusion into any relationship, I would have thought!”

That was one of the things that made me fall in love with him in the first place: he always sees things from a different perspective and makes me think about how I see things. I love that about him!

“Welcome back!” says Trixie. “All our daredevils have had their makeover,” she recaps, conveniently forgetting about Shanumi, “and Matt’s extreme transformation has won this week’s show for him.”

“Now, though,” Joe takes over, “we’re going to be losing one of wor daredevils. To find out who’ll be leaving us, it’s time for this week’s Live Dare-Off.”

“That’s right,” confirms Trixie, “our three lowest-scorers this week will take part in a special dare live in the studio to try to keep themselves in with a chance of becoming Britain’s Most Daring.”

“So, out you come, Bradley, Mitchell, and Shanumi!” instructs Joe. The three of them get up and walk over to join Trixie and Joe.

“Bradley,” Trixie says, “you’ve been here before!”

“Yeah, I got through that one, hopefully I can do the same again!”

“Mitchell, Shanumi,” she asks the other two, “how are you feeling?”

“Nervous!” admits Mitchell.

“I’ve got this nailed!” says Shanumi, confidently.

“Okay, here’s wor Dare Deliverer to tell you what you’ll be doing!” Joe informs them.

The familiar sultry-yet-powerful voice of the Dare Deliverer announces tonight’s live dare. “We’re going to play a little truth game. All you have to do is answer 5 simple questions! But, I dare you to be completely truthful. The one who answers least truthfully will be leaving Britain’s Most Daring tonight. Remember, my little daredevils, honesty is always the best policy!”

As she did before, Trixie has moved to the other side of the studio, where the three circular cubicles from last week are back. They have been modified slightly, with one of the seats in each replaced by a flat-screen monitor and a keypad. Above the cutaway front section of each cubicle is a row of five lights, which are all off at the moment.

“Okay, Joe,” Trixie calls to her co-presenter, “bring them across!”

Joe crosses the studio to join Trixie, bringing with him Bradley, Mitchell, and Shanumi. Before they are placed into their cubicles, Trixie explains the rules.

“You’re going to be shown 5 questions, each of which has two options, ‘A’ or ‘B’. You will have 10 seconds to choose one of the options as your answer. Remember, you’ve been dared to answer truthfully!” She concludes with a cautionary note, “And be warned, we have done our research!”

As the three daredevils take their seat in the cubicles, Trixie explains a little more to the studio audience and the viewers.

“We’ve rooted around on social media and spoken to family and friends, so we know what the honest answers to these questions should be. If their answers don’t match with what we know to be the truth, the light on the panel will go red. If they are truthful, it will go green. The person with the most red lights will be leaving the show.”

“Are you ready?” Joe asks Bradley, Mitchell, and Shanumi. They all confirm they are.

“Okay,” Trixie instructs, “let’s have our first question!”

The question appears simultaneously on the monitor in each cubicle and at the bottom of our screen. ‘What do you prefer to do on a normal Saturday night: (A) quiet night in or (B) out on the town?’ Above the question, the rest of the screen splits, showing us how all three are answering. Bradley and Mitchell have chosen A, whilst Shanumi has gone for B. No surprises there! When the 10 seconds are up, the first light on all three cubicles turns green. The three daredevils, of course, cannot see this.

“Next question!” requests Trixie.

‘Have you ever been in trouble with the police? (A) Yes or (B) No.’ Mitchell and Shanumi quickly press B, but Bradley seems to be in two minds. As his time runs out, he selects A. The second light on each cubicle also turns green. Bradley had obviously been considering lying about his misdemeanour!

“Question number 3, please!” Trixie says.

‘How far would you go on a first date? (A) No more than a kiss; (B) As far as I can get away with.’ Shanumi again hits B straight away, but the two men are having more trouble with this. Bradley eventually hits A, and, just before time is up, so does Mitchell. This time, they have not all been honest. Bradley and Shanumi get another green light, but Mitchell’s middle light turns red. The audience’s reaction gives the three daredevils a clue that something has happened.

“Can we have our next question, please?” asks Trixie.

‘Have you ever had a holiday romance? (A) Yes or (B) No.’ As ever, Shanumi is first to answer, selecting A. Mitchell goes for B, whilst Bradley also plumps for B after a fair bit of agonising. Only Shanumi gets a green light this time, meaning that she is now assured of her place on the show next week, although she is unaware of that, of course.

“Okay,” Trixie says, “time for our last question!”

‘When it comes to sex, size doesn’t matter. Is that (A) true or (B) false?’

I wonder how my family are feeling about that question. I like to think I am broad-minded and not easily embarrassed, so I have no problem with it. Phil, I think, will be a little more uncomfortable, not because he is embarrassed about discussing sex, but because of the presence of the two girls. Their reactions are what I am most interested in.

I look at Maddie, who is focussed intently on the TV. Is that just because she’s hooked, or is it to avoid the possibility of any embarrassing eye-contact with one of us at this moment?

Glancing at Lissie, I am somewhat at a loss to know precisely where she is in her emotional development. She, too, appears engrossed in the on-screen action. But I wonder about her awareness of sex and her reaction to its mention.

Shanumi giggles when she reads the question, but quickly answers B. Mitchell is also quick to answer, choosing A. Bradley once again takes the longest to make his mind up, finally picking B. His last light, together with Shanumi’s, turns green, whilst Mitchell’s goes red.

Before the daredevils are allowed out of their cubicles, the presenters wander over to them, ready to conduct a post-mortem.

Joe starts with Bradley. “So, who’s been a naughty boy, then?” he asks. “What did you do to get the police on your back?”

Bradley scrapes his hair back with his hands, and says, “I got arrested for being drunk and disorderly a few years back.”

“Oh yes …?” says Joe, leaving a pause for Bradley to fill.

“I don’t remember much about it, that’s how drunk I was, but I think I was caught watering a council flower display in the town centre!”

“And your holiday romance?”

“I’ve never had one!”

“We beg to differ!”

“Really?” Bradley says, then his expression changes as something from his past resurfaces. “Ah, yes!” he mutters.

“Ah, yes!” Joe repeats.

“I wouldn’t call it a holiday romance,” Bradley explains, “more like a roll on the beach after dark! And I was only 19 at the time!”

“I see!” Joe says, nodding knowingly.

“Mitchell,” Trixie says, “you’ve been telling us porkies, haven’t you?!”

He looks at her and shuffles in his seat, his face a mixture of guilt and embarrassment.

“No holiday romance?” she reminds him of his untruthful answers. “No further than a kiss on a first date?”

“Hmmm, yeah,” he says. “I haven’t dated for a long time, so what I’d do now is maybe different to what I did when I was a lot younger.”

“That’s sounds like a pretty feeble excuse!” Trixie declares. “But I’m more interested in your last answer,” she tells him, turning the screw of embarrassment a little further, “size doesn’t matter?”

“That’s right!” he confirms.

“Are you sure?” she says accusingly.

He gives a nervous laugh.

“Are we a little large or a touch on the tiny side?” she enquires, to the delight of the audience and the total embarrassment of Mitchell.

Mitchell’s only answer is another nervous laugh.

Maddie glances at me, obviously feeling somewhat awkward at having to share this subject matter with her parents; particularly, I assume, her Dad. I smile reassuringly, but I don’t think it helps.

I look down at Lissie, to see how she is reacting to Trixie’s questions, but I can’t really tell. I assume that, at nearly 13, she does at least know what Trixie is referring to, but a nagging voice in the back of my mind tells me that, maybe, it’s time for an awkward sit-down talk with my younger daughter.

Before Trixie can get any more intimate, Joe begins his questioning of Shanumi.

“You didn’t need much time to think about any of your answers, did you?” he comments.

“When you’re being honest, you don’t have to think about it, do you?” she replies.

“And were you being honest?” he asks, even though we know the answer to that question.

“You should know! You’ve done the research!”

The audience reaction suggests that they are not overly-impressed with the cockiness she’s displaying. But she pays no attention to them.

Trixie and Joe return to the front of the set and call the three daredevils over to join them. Shanumi glances over her shoulder, to see who has the most red lights. The two men don’t think of doing this, so are still unaware of who is on their way out of the show.

Once again, Trixie does away with all the theatrical pause-for-effect nonsense that bedevils so many reality and talent shows, simply announcing the result. “The person with the most dishonest answers, and therefore the person who will be leaving tonight, is Mitchell!”

Mitchell gives a small grimace, which suggests that he kind of expected it to be him. Bradley breathes a huge sigh of relief as he realises that he has survived his second Dare-Off.

“Bradley and Shanumi, you’ve survived, so you may go and take your seats with the others!” Trixie tells them. “Well done!

The two of them walk across the studio to re-take their seats, to the accompaniment of warm applause from the audience. Trixie and Joe stand either side of Mitchell.

“Well, Mitchell,” Joe says, “wor Dare Deliverer told you honesty was the best policy, and you got caught fibbing!”

“What can I say?” Mitchell replies. “You have done your research!”

“And how has being on Britain’s Most Daring been for you?” Trixie asks.

“I’ve enjoyed it! It’s been something a bit different, and I’m glad I gave it a go! It’s just a shame I haven’t been able to go a bit further!”

“Well, before we say goodbye to Mitchell,” Trixie tells us, “let’s have a look at how he did!”

A short montage follows, allowing us to see for the first time Mitchell being thrown off the end of Bournemouth pier. We then see him eating seaweed, before hearing once more his terrible ‘kelp me’ joke. This is followed by a clip of him in his celebrity bling posing for selfies with a bunch of excited kids, before the montage ends with Mitchell having fake tan applied to his arms by his girlfriend. The audience applaud Mitchell’s efforts.

“Ladies and gentlemen, one last time, Mitchell!” Trixie cries, as Mitchell nods at the camera, turns and walks off the set and out of Britain’s Most Daring.

“So, that’s Mitchell gone,” Joe says, “but we still have 13 daredevils left on the show.”

“Straight after we’ve finished tonight, they’ll find out what their next dare is,” Trixie states, “so make sure you tune in next week to see what they’re up against on Britain’s Most Daring!”

The two presenters wave as the camera pulls out and then pans around to show a distant shot of the 13 remaining daredevils, who are also waving. As the credits start to roll, the screen slowly fades to black behind them.

“I wonder what their next dare will be,” says Lissie.

“Who knows?” I tell her, and then decide to throw out a warning to Maddie. “And this week, Madeleine, we’ll have no rushing in telling us you can’t tell us anything, okay!?” I make sure she understands how serious I am about this by using her proper name.

“Yeah, Mam,” she says, “I’ll try to think before I say anything.”

That’s my girl!

Weekly Update
 

Episode 4 (Part 1)
 

Lissie joins us in the living room, ready for this week’s Britain’s Most Daring, wearing her pyjamas and carrying her sleeping bag along with the usual pillow.

“I’ve just had a bath,” she explains, “and I can’t be bothered to get dressed. But I’ll get cold just in my p-j’s, so I’ve got this to keep warm in.”

Phil shakes his head and sighs.

Lissie unrolls the sleeping bag and zips herself into it. She’s still wriggling around trying to get comfortable when the TV announcer begins his introduction.

“Our Saturday evening’s entertainment here on Channel 4 continues now with a special musical extravaganza.”

The screen fills with the opening panoramic scene from ‘The Sound Of Music’. To a building crescendo from the orchestral backing track, we fly over trees and meadows, spotting the figure of Julie Andrews on the hilltop below us. As we zoom in, she spins round to face us and opens her mouth ready to deliver that famous first line …

There is the sound of a needle being lifted clumsily off a record, and Julie Andrews disappears in an instant, replaced by the opening titles of Channel 4’s edgy gameshow. Once again, they have been tweaked to include a few clips from last week’s show. As they come to an end, loud applause is heard and the screen fades to black before white writing appears: ‘Last week on Britain’s Most Daring …’

We have come to expect a frantic opening montage, and we are not disappointed. This time, though, there are no highlight clips from last week’s show. Instead, we simply see a rapidly changing set of still images of the 14 daredevils who were on the show last week. They flash onto the screen and off again with alarming speed. As each daredevil’s image returns, they have changed slightly, until, by their last appearance, they have morphed into the way they looked after their makeover. The montage begins with an image of Shanumi, and the sharp-eyed viewer will note that we don’t see her again until the very last shot, when she looks exactly the same as she did at the start. The screen fades to black as the number 14 appears in red; behind these digits we see a clip of Mitchell leaving the show, and the 4 changes to a 3; the screen fades to black again and the number 13 disappears too.

To the sound of another enthusiastic round of applause, the scene quickly cuts to a long-shot of the two presenters in the studio. We zoom in until they fill the frame, standing next to each other, waiting for the audience’s clapping and cheering to die down. Trixie is wearing a sparkling silver off-the-shoulder dress, which comes down to just above her knees; Joe, we are astonished to see, is wearing a tuxedo, complete with bow tie.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Trixie begins, “and welcome to Britain’s Most Daring, with me, Trixie Stonehill …”

“… and me, Joe Denecker,” Joe says, as usual.

Trixie appears to be about to say something, when she stops and looks at Joe. “Going somewhere special after the show?” she asks him, cheekily referring to his unusually smart appearance.

“No!” he tells her.

“Auditioning for one of the DAPAs’ positions, perhaps?” she suggests. We see the DAPAs place their hands against their cheeks and give us a horrified look.

“No!” Joe replies again.

“Well,” Trixie remarks, “there has to be some reason for it!” She indicates with a sweep of her hand that by ‘it’ she means Joe’s tuxedo.

“I just thought I’d bring a special look to tonight’s special show!” he explains.

“Oh!” she says.

“And I see you’ve gone all sparkly on us, as well!” he adds.

“Yeah, do you like it?”

Joe produces a pair of very black sunglasses from the top pocket of his tux, puts them on and says, “I do now!” Trixie puts her hands on her hips and gives him an exasperated look.

The banter over, Trixie looks into camera and delivers her next line. “After losing Mitchell last week, we have 13 daredevils left, vying with each other to be crowned Britain’s Most Daring.”

“And it will be unlucky 13 for someone,” Joe continues, “because, as always, we’ll be losing one of wor daredevils at the end of tonight’s show. As we all know, on this show, if you flop you’re dropped!”

“Tonight, though, we have a very special show for you,” Trixie says, enticingly. “Just what it is will become clear when we hear from our very own Dare Deliverer. This is how she broke the news to the daredevils after last week’s show.”

The daredevils, in their full makeover outfits, are sitting in their chairs as usual. Trixie and Joe are standing, together, at one end of the rows. We can see that all the daredevils are holding a white envelope.

“Okay,” Trixie tells them, “we need you to open your envelopes and show us what’s inside!”

They do so, and we can see that there are three letters, ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’; presumably, this means there are three different dares as well.

We focus on Gemma and see that she is holding the letter ‘B’. Now we know which dare to particularly listen out for.

Once all the letters are revealed, we hear the familiar sultry voice of the Dare Deliverer. “Well, my little daredevils,” she says, “this week you are going to be doing some group dares! Won’t that be nice! All those of you holding the letter ‘A’, I dare you to go busking together; you must collect as much money as you can! Those of you with the letter ‘B’, I dare you to get together and form a choir; I’ve arranged for you to appear at a very special concert! All of you with the letter ‘C’, I dare you to join forces to get a crowd of football fans singing along with you, but no naughty rude chants! Have fun, my lovelies, and remember …”

We hear Julie Andrews’ first line that had been so cruelly cut off at the start of the show: “The hills are alive with the sound of music,” before we return to Trixie and Joe live in the studio. Joe has removed his dark glasses.

We look at each other, all seeking an answer to the same question: can Gemma sing? None of us appears to know the answer!

“Yes,” Trixie declares, excitedly, “we have a musical extravaganza for you this evening!”

“Never mind the X-Factor,” grins Joe, “this is going to be the why-factor!”

“The Y-Factor?” Trixie asks, misunderstanding Joe for comic effect.

“Yes,” he tells her, “why did we ever think this was a good idea!”

She smirks, but presses on regardless. “Let’s see what our daredevils thought of their latest dare!” she says.

The screen returns us to after last week’s show, as we watch the less-glamorous versions of Trixie and Joe interview each of the daredevils in turn. This serves as a useful way of showing us who will be doing each dare.

We, of course, are watching carefully, to see who will be joining Gemma in the choir.

First to be interviewed is the youngest daredevil, 18-year-old student, Dylan. Trixie does the honours. “So Dylan, what have you got?”

He shows her his card with the letter ‘A’ on it. “I’m busking, apparently!”

“Ever done that before?”

“No, and I can’t sing or play any kind of instrument either!”

“So, not looking forward to it, then?”

“Yeah, I’ll have a blast!” he assures her.

We see Joe and Ayla next. “Let’s see your card, Ayla!” Joe asks. Ayla reveals she is in the ‘B’ group. “Ever sung in a choir?”

“No!”

“Ever wanted to?”

“No!”

“Excited about it?”

“Take a guess!” Ayla answers, with a quick raise of her eyebrows.

“Shanumi,” begins Trixie, “which letter have you got?”

“C!” replies Shanumi, showing us the card by way of confirming this.

“How many football songs do you know?”

“I hate football!” she informs the world.

“Not happy with this dare, then?”

“Not really!” Shanumi admits. “I’d have loved to have been in the choir!”

“We’re not going to see another refusal, are we?”

“Definitely not!” she promises. “I’m doing this!”

“Keenan,” Joe instructs, “reveal all!” Keenan holds up his card, which has the letter ‘C’ on it.
“So, you’re off to the football with Shanumi! How d’you feel about that?”

“Let’s hope it’s a good game!” Keenan grins.

“What about leading the chants?”

“Yeah, that’s alright!” he says, without sounding too convinced about it.

“Where are you hoping you might be?”

“Anywhere except Arsenal! I hate Arsenal!”

Trixie is standing next to James. “What have you got?” she asks him. He shows her a card with a ‘C’ on it. “Another one for the football!” she remarks. “Well …?”

“Oh, God!” he says. He doesn’t need to add anything.

“Not a good dare for you, I take it?!”

“My singing voice doesn’t just break records,” James quips, “it shatters everything!”

“Ah!” says Trixie.

“So, heaven help the poor souls at whatever football game we turn up to!”

“Eilidh, which one have you got?” Joe asks.

“B,” Eilidh replies, “the choir one.”

“Please tell us we’ve got at least one person who can sing!” Joe pleads.

“Oh, aye, I love singing! I was in the school choir all the way up to Year 11!”

“Wow! So, this is right up your street, then?!”

“Aye, I just hope I’ve got some decent voices tae work with me!”

“Bradley,” begins Trixie, “which dare have you got?”

“The busking one!” he tells her, as he holds up his ‘A’ card.

“You’ve been in the Dare-Off both times so far,” Trixie reminds him. “Are we likely to see you there again this week?”

“I hope not!”

“But …” Trixie encourages him to say more.

“No buts! I’ll get my guitar and see what I can do with it!”

“Show us your card, Gemma,” Joe tells the rainbow-haired teenager. She holds up a card on which a large letter ‘B’ is printed. “So, you’re in the choir!” he points out.

“Yeah! I’m looking forward to it!”

“Have you done anything like this before?”

“No, but I’m always singing in the shower at home!”

“There’s an image I’m going to take away with me tonight!” declares Joe. Poor Gemma blushes bright red. Joe puts a hand on her arm and gives her a kind smile. “Dinna worry lass,” he tells her, “you’ll be champion!”

“Well, Tommy, …?” Trixie says to the Yorkshire regional winner. It’s hard to imagine anyone looking less like a singer than the weather-beaten Tommy!

“I’m in the choir as well!” he tells her, showing her his ‘B’.

“Are you going to surprise us and tell us you’ve sung in a choir all your life?” she asks, impertinently.

“I’d like to,” he teases, “but, no, I’ve never sung in a choir.”

“How’s your singing voice?”

“We’ll find out, won’t we?!”

“Matt,” says Joe, “don’t say you’re in the choir as well!” Matt holds up his card. There’s a ‘B’ on it. He is in the choir! “Is it good news for the other choir members?” Joe enquires.

“Only if they’re deaf!” jokes Matt.

“So, not looking forward to this week then?”

“Not really, but you’ve just got to make the best of it and get through!”

“Positivity,” comments Joe, “that’s what we like!”

“Mia, hold up your card, please,” instructs Trixie. Mia does so, revealing an ‘A’ in the process.
“Busking: ever done it before?” asks Trixie.

“Yeah, every summer me and a mate have a pitch near the pier.”

“At last, someone who knows what they’re doing!”

“I love it! I love the reaction you get from the public! It’s brilliant! Everyone should try it!”

“Which dare are you doing?” Joe asks Tariq.

“The football one, innit!” Tariq replies, showing his letter ‘C’ to the camera.

“We know you’re a big QPR fan,” Joe recalls, “so, presumably that’s where you want to be leading the singing?!”

“Nah,” says Tariq, surprising everyone with his answer, “that’d be way too embarrassing, bruv! Anyway, we’re away at Wolves next Saturday, innit.”

“Any good at singing?”

“What do you think?”

“I’m guessing that’s a ‘no’!” grins Joe.

“What’s on your card, Jaz?” enquires Trixie.

“I’ve got an A!” Jaz answers, showing us her card to prove it.

“Which means you’re going busking!” Trixie tells her. “How does that sound?”

“I wasn’t looking forward to it, until I heard what Mia said,” she reveals, “but now I reckon it could be a whole lot of fun!”

“You’re hoping Mia will teach you a trick or two?”

“Exactly!” Jaz confirms. “It’ll be really good to see how she does it!”

The interviews over, we return to the live-in-the-studio, all-glammed-up versions of Trixie and Joe.

“So, that’s what our daredevils thought about their musical dares,” Trixie says. “Join us after the break to see how they got on! We’ll be right back with more Britain’s Most Daring, after this!”

“They must have been rehearsing last weekend;” Maddie states, “that’s why Gemma didn’t get back from the studios until Monday night!”

“Probably!” I agree.

“And then the concert thing must have been in Glasgow last night,” Maddie continues, piecing together the evidence of the past week to come up with her conclusion.

“Mmm-hmmm,” I reply.

“Wow!” exclaims Lissie. “I wonder what sort of concert it was!”

There is quiet for a moment, as we all try to imagine the possibilities.

Episode 4 (Part 2)
 

“Gemma’s got a really nice singing voice!” Lissie announces, out of the blue.

“How do you know?” Maddie asks.

“She used to sing to me when I was little.”

“When was that?” I enquire.

“When she lived with us.”

“You remember that?” I ask, surprised. “You were only 3 or 4 at the time!”

“I can remember it like it was yesterday. You used to come upstairs with me and get me ready for bed. And then, after you’d tucked me in and gone back downstairs, Gemma used to come into my room and sing lullabies to me.”

“Did she?” I say, belatedly angry that Gemma had kept little Lissie up later than she should.

“Yeah,” Lissie remembers, “I used to love her singing to me! She had a really nice voice, all soft and gentle. I bet she still has!”

“Her voice won’t be the same,” I warn my youngest daughter, “that was 9 years ago. Gemma’s an adult now, so her voice will have changed from when she was 10.”

“But I bet it’s still soft and gentle and lovely!” she insists. “I can’t wait to hear her sing again!”

“Welcome back to Britain’s Most Daring’s Musical Extravaganza!” beams Trixie, her dress reflecting the studio lights in a sparkling series of twinkles.

“Wor daredevils have all been given a singing dare to complete,” Joe reminds us.

“Yes,” Trixie continues, “and it’s a special group dare this week, so they’ve been divided into three groups. And, to look after each group, we’ve brought in some of our favourite Britain’s Most Daring presenters.” She looks at Joe, adding, “And I don’t mean you!”

“Thank you very much!” replies Joe. “I notice you’re not on the list, either!”

“Exactly!” Trixie remarks, leaving us uncertain what she means by that.

“After a night to think about it,” Joe says, “the following morning the groups got together for the first time. Let’s see what happened!”

Trixie introduces the next segment, “First up, the choir. Here’s Lorna to tell us more.”

Lorna is standing in a corridor, next to a door marked ‘Studio 4’. She is wearing a vibrant green silk blouse above a black knee-length skirt, and has a small yellow flower pinned into her hair.

“The other side of this door,” she informs us, “the five members of our choir are finding out what talents they each might be able to bring to this dare. Let’s go and join them!”

She opens the door and enters, leaving us to follow her in. Once through, we see Ayla, Eilidh, Gemma, Matt, and Tommy sat on plastic chairs in a vaguely semi-circle arrangement. They all look across at us, to see who is intruding on their session.

“Hi guys!” Lorna says cheerfully to them. They respond with varying degrees of energy and enthusiasm. “So,” she continues, “where are we at?”

Eilidh answers, “We’re working out what everyone can and cannae do, in terms of singing.”

“Okay,” Lorna bubbles, “and what have we discovered?”

“I think us girls should be okay, but Matt’s definitely gonnae be a probem! I’m not really sure about Tommy, he’s no giving much away!” Eilidh reveals. In the background, we see Matt smiling and agreeing.

“That sounds promising!” Lorna says, exuding positivity. “And what do we do with Matt?”

“We hav’nae got that far yet!”

As the only one of the group with experience of singing in a choir, Eilidh has assumed leadership for now, and the others seem quite happy to go along with that.

We notice that neither of the two Scots girls are wearing their makeover outfits, but Gemma still has her rainbow hairstyle. The boys, obviously, can do nothing about their radical new looks!

“Great!” Lorna enthuses again. “It sounds like it’s going really well!” They nod. “So,” she continues, “I’m here to tell you a bit more about the concert you’ll be performing in.” The five daredevils all notably lean forward in their seats, eager to hear what Lorna has to tell them. “So, there’s a very special concert on Friday evening at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall,” she tells them, “in aid of Heads Together. As I’m sure you know, Heads Together is the campaign to bring mental health issues out into the open. It is fronted by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry; and William is hoping to be at the concert, along with Harry and Meghan.”

There are audible gasps from the others as the enormity of what Lorna has just said hits them: they are going to be singing in front of royalty!

“It’s not a pop concert as such,” Lorna continues. “There’s a real mix of styles, Susan Boyle is headlining, and it’s being hosted by Kevin Bridges, the comedian, I don’t know if you know him.”

“Aye,” exclaims Ayla, “he’s really good!”

“Well, anyway,” Lorna goes on, “we’ve got you a 10-minute slot in the concert, and the organisers are expecting three songs in that slot. So, now you know what you have to aim for!” Once she has finished speaking, she exits the room, leaving us to stay behind with the daredevils.

Goodness me! I can hardly believe what I’ve just seen and heard!

“You didn’t say anything about that!” Lissie says, accusingly, to Maddie.

“That’s ’cos I didn’t know!” Maddie exclaims.

“I can’t believe it!” Lissie continues.

“I know!” agrees Maddie. “Just imagine! Singing in front of William and Harry! I think I’d die of embarrassment or nerves!”

“No wonder they were rehearsing so much!” I comment.

There is a stunned silence in Studio 4 after Lorna has left. Tommy and Matt are shaking their heads in near-disbelief, whilst Gemma appears to be staring into space. Eilidh’s confident leadership has evaporated as she sits with her hands pressed against the underside of her chin. Ayla quietly looks around at the others; she is the first one to speak.

“Right, well,” she begins, “we’d better make sure we put on a damn good performance, then! Eh? What d’you say guys? Let’s show ’em what we can do!”

“Yeah,” agrees Tommy, “let’s do this!”

“Whatever it takes!” emphasises Ayla.

Back, live, in the studio, Trixie and Joe seem to be equally surprised by Lorna’s news, though, we imagine, that must simply be scripted surprise, given that the concert took place yesterday!

“Well,” states Joe, “that’s put the cat amongst the pigeons!”

“It has certainly increased the pressure on our choir to do their dare well!” Trixie agrees.

“We’ll see how they cope with that pressure a little later,” Joe informs us.

“Next, though, let’s see how the football group are getting on!” Trixie says. “Here’s Aleksandra with the low-down.”

Aleksandra is in a similar corridor to the one we saw Lorna in just now, only the door she is standing next to leads to Studio 2. As always, Aleksandra is looking stunning, with a really interesting mauve top drawing our eyes to her middle, below which she is wearing a dark micro mini-skirt. The top itself is perfectly normal until her midriff, when it becomes a series of criss-crossing strings that attach to a thin strip of material wrapped around her waist.

“Shall we see how our football-loving funsters are getting on in there?” she asks us, gesturing with her hand to the studio door. “Come with me!” she instructs, and we do.

James, Tariq, and Keenan are all stood at one end of the room, in various poses that each displays a degree of frustration. They are all looking at Shanumi, who is sitting in the middle of the room, staring back at them, with her arms folded across her chest, striking a defiant pose. We assume that she is the cause of their frustration.

“Hello, my friends!” Aleksandra greets them. They all look at her but none of them say anything. “Oh dear,” she says, “you don’t look very happy! Something is wrong, I think!” She looks enquiringly at each of them in turn, but no-one seems to want to be the first to speak.

As we wait for someone to say something, we see that Tariq has ditched his smart look from the previous night. We are also aware that Keenan is Keenan once more, and not Special K. James, though, is still wearing his hairpiece.

Aleksandra uses this to try to break the ice. She edges over to James and flirtily ruffles his hair. “I love this,” she tells him, “it feels so real!”

We see just the hint of a blush from James, as he says, “It’s a good job you do! I’m stuck with it at the moment! I tried to get the damn thing off last night, but I couldn’t shift it! God knows what Els stuck it on with!”

The others laugh at his predicament, and the tension in the room eases.

“So,” Aleksandra continues, “I have something to tell you! But you have to be nice to each other before I do! No more sulky-sulky! Is that a deal?”

Four affirmative responses are either heard or seen, so Aleksandra reveals some more details about their dare.

“On Friday, there is a little football game in something called the F. A. Cup. It is Chelsea against Aston Villa and it is at Wembley Stadium. You are going to be leading some entertainment before the game, when you must try to get the fans of each team to sing louder than the others! I think it is going to be a lot of fun!”

“Oh, man!” Tariq says quietly to himself, shaking his head.

“Be nice!” Aleksandra tells them, as she exits the studio without us.

Keenan claps his hands together twice to get everyone’s attention. “Okay,” he says, “we’ve got to sort this!”

We return to Trixie and Joe, and find them looking suitably impressed once more.

“That’s another high-pressure dare, that!” comments Joe.

“It certainly is!” Trixie concurs. “It’ll be interesting to see if they can resolve whatever problems they appear to have!”

“We’ll return later to see whether that’s possible,” Joe says.

“But, before we do,” Trixie adds, “we should drop in on our buskers! There was only person we could ask to take on this motley band: it had to be Lowri!”

We find ourselves in another identical corridor, next to a door that only differs from the previous two because of the number after the word ‘Studio’. This one has a 6 on it. Lowri is leaning against the door, holding a harmonica. She is dressed as some sort of wannabe hippy, with a flowery loose-fitting blouse and a flowing yellow-and-brown skirt. The look is completed by a garland of flowers she is wearing around her head.

“Right,” she tells us, “I’ve got the gear, so let’s do some busking, shall we?!”

She pushes the door open and gives a quick blast on the harmonica as she walks into the studio. The four daredevils look up, startled by her entrance and bemused by her appearance.

“What’s happening then, guys?” she asks them, before blowing another note on the harmonica.

Dylan, who is more used to her irrepressible nature than the others, is the only one not too stunned to answer.

“We’re just working out what we can all actually do when we go busking,” he tells her.

“Okay,” she says, “so what have we learned?”

“Well, Bradley’s got his guitar,” Dylan begins, “Mia can do all sorts of stuff, and we’re trying to persuade Jaz to sing.”

“What about you?” Lowri asks.

“I’m holding the collecting tin!” he laughs.

Lowri takes a quick look around the group, then says, “Well, Mia, I s’pose you’ll be wanting someone to play harmonica for you!”

Mia looks at her. “Can I get back to you on that?!” she says.

“Well, before you do, let me tell you a bit more about your dare,” Lowri replies. “So, you’re going to be spending four hours busking around Bristol Harbourside next Saturday morning. You have to collect as much money as you can, which we’ll then donate to Caring In Bristol, which supports homeless and vulnerable people in the city. But you’re not allowed to tell people that you’re collecting for charity, they have to think you’re keeping the money yourselves! Obviously, we want a nice big total to hand over to Caring In Bristol! So, no pressure, whatsoever!” She gives them a final, assertive blast on her harmonica and then exits, leaving us behind.

“We’ve got to make this good!” remarks Jaz.

“Yeah,” agrees Mia, “we need to make sure we are interesting enough to attract people’s attention and good enough to get them to part with their money!”

“Oh my days!” exclaims Dylan.

“Who on earth let Lowri have that harmonica?” Joe asks Trixie, when we return to them, live in the studio. “That’s like a lethal weapon in her hands!”

“Never mind the busking,” Trixie adds, “I think Mia’s got her hands full keeping Lowri under control!”

“But it’s another dare with plenty of pressure to perform,” comments Joe. “We’re playing for high stakes this week!”

“Yes, we are,” nods Trixie, before addressing the viewers at home, “so make sure you join us for more Britain’s Most Daring after the break!”

We are still coming to terms with the shock of finding out that Gemma is going to be singing in front of the young royals. Maddie is texting furiously on her phone.

“I’d love to know how the concert went!” Lissie tells us.

“Wouldn’t we all!” replies her father.

Episode 4 (Part 3)
 

The warble from her phone lets Maddie know that her frenetic texting hasn’t been in vain. She checks to see what’s arrived and then gives us an update: “Stacie’s just as shocked and surprised as we are! She didn’t know anything about the concert until she saw it on the show just now! I can’t believe Gemma kept it secret from her!”

“Maybe she had to, because of the contract with the TV people,” I suggest.

“It must have been so hard to not tell anyone!” imagines Maddie.

“Welcome back!” says Trixie. “Before the break we saw the pressure ramp up as our daredevils found out exactly what they’re facing in this week’s special group dares!”

“Yeah,” adds Joe, “I think I can safely say that they weren’t expecting to be doing their dares in quite the way they’ve turned out!”

“Singing in front of royalty; leading football chants at Wembley Stadium; and trying to raise as much money for charity as possible in four hours’ busking,” Trixie reminds us.

“That’s what they’re up against!” remarks Joe.

“So, let’s take a look at how they prepared!” Trixie says, taking us into the next filmed segment of the show.

This time, our three groups’ mentors provide voiceovers as we jump between the groups, watching as each of them takes another step towards being ready to perform their dare …

… “Now they know more about their dare,” begins Aleksandra, “Keenan wants the group to settle their differences.”

“What do you suggest, then?” we hear him say to Shanumi.

She shrugs. “There’s no point people who can’t sing trying to lead the crowd singing, is there?” she replies.

“But you haven’t said what we can do,” he tells her. “You can’t just sit there and be negative all the time!”

She sits, arms folded across her chest, defiantly, and looks at him, but says nothing.

“Oh, man,” complains Tariq, “this is getting us nowhere, innit!” He takes out his phone and starts swiping the screen …

… “The buskers have enough instruments between them for backing, but they need a confident singer,” Lowri informs us. “So, Mia sets about persuading Jaz.”

“Come on, Jaz,” we see Mia say, “just give it a go!”

“I can’t just sing, on my own, like that,” Jaz complains, “I need something to sing to.”

Dylan begins swiping his phone, “Let me find something on here!” he offers.

As he continues to search for a song Jaz knows, we hear Lowri tell us, “Mia knows that, if Jaz doesn’t agree to sing, they are in a difficult situation. The other three either can’t or won’t sing, so they are pinning all their hopes on Jaz.”

Dylan has found a song that Jaz knows the lyrics to and is playing it on his phone, encouraging her to sing along. When she does, we and her fellow buskers realise she has a really good singing voice …

… “The three boys decide to press ahead without Shanumi for the moment,” says Aleksandra.

We see Tariq, Keenan, and James making a list of well-known football chants on a whiteboard that they’ve found lying around the studio. Tariq is still swiping away on his phone.

“Wanting to find if there are any special chants for each team, Tariq and Keenan put google to work,” Aleksandra continues.

“Oh, what!” exclaims Tariq. “Listen to this one, innit!” He plays a clip on his phone, of fans chanting, which we can just about hear: ‘celery, celery; if she don’t come, I’ll tickle her bum, with a lump of celery’ …

… “Eilidh is putting the choir through some individual singing exercises, to try to work out how their voices might fit together best,” we hear Lorna tell us.

Eilidh begins by demonstrating the vocal exercise she wants them to do, allowing us to discover that she has a very polished soprano voice. When Ayla tries the exercise, her voice is stronger and slightly mellower, but she appears to have a little trouble with the highest notes; Gemma’s singing voice has a soft, fragile quality to it that would be perfect for the right kind of song.

“The boys’ attempts at the singing exercise really give Eilidh something to think about!” comments Lorna.

Matt has great difficulty working his way through the exercise, struggling to hit any right notes. But it is Tommy who provides the moment of surprise, both to his fellow choir members and to us, the viewers. When he tries the exercise, he hits every note perfectly, with a splendidly toned bass voice, much to Eilidh’s great delight.

“God, Tommy,” she exclaims, “you’ve got a great voice! We need tae make your voice a feature!”

“I’m not singing solo!” Tommy warns her. “No way! I’ll sing as a group, but not on my own!”

Eilidh looks disappointed, but says, “Okay, but, people need tae hear you sing!” …

… We return to the Wembley-bound group, and Aleksandra reports, “James tries to get Shanumi to take an interest.”

“We need a strong voice to lead the chants!” he tells her. “I can’t do it and nor can Tariq! And I don’t know about Keenan! But I bet you can!”

She looks at him and shrugs. “I can sing, but what’s the point?” she asks him.

“The point, young lady,” he tells her, showing the first signs of irritation, “is that I don’t want us to go out there and make complete idiots of ourselves! And you’re the best chance we’ve got of not doing that!”

She smiles, and we wonder whether James is managing to break down her defences …

… “Eilidh is really excited about the talent there is amongst the choir members, but there is one problem:” Lorna says, “Matt!”

“Matt, I dinnae want this tae sound nasty in any way,” Eilidh tells him, “but you cannae sing!”

“I know!” laughs Matt.

“No,” Eilidh corrects his misunderstanding, “what I mean is, you cannae sing with us! Your singing is so bad that it would make us miss our notes, so you just cannae sing with us! Sorry, but that’s how it is! But, I dinnae want tae leave you out, though!”

“I could just stand and look pretty!” suggests Matt, with a grin.

“What, looking like that?!” exclaims Ayla. “I don’t think so!” she adds amidst much laughter.

“Nice one!” Matt tells her.

Tommy suddenly turns to Matt and says, “Can you whistle, mate?” Matt gives an extravagant display of his whistling skills. “Why don’t we use Matt’s whistling for the instrumental breaks?” Tommy offers. “You know, instead of a guitar solo, we have a whistling solo!”

“Yes!” says Ayla, insistently.

“Aye,” agrees Eilidh, “that could work! Would you be happy with that, Matt?”

“Yeah, definitely!” he confirms …

… “With Jaz having agreed to sing,” Lowri informs us, “the group begin to plan how they might fill four hours of busking.”

“I can’t sing for four hours!” Jaz points out.

“No,” says Mia, “we’ll use your singing as highlights between other parts where we’re playing and stuff.”

“What do you do when you go busking?” Dylan asks Mia.

“We’re only allowed to do an hour at a time,” she explains, “then we have to leave for at least an hour.”

“Okay, I get that,” Dylan replies, “but, still, what do you do?”

“So, we play well-known tunes or pieces of music on a load of different instruments.”

“Like what?”

“Well, I play clarinet, penny whistle, recorder, and keyboards,” Mia tells them, “and Coops plays percussion, guitar and violin.”

“Blimey!” exclaims Jaz. “That’s half an orchestra!” …

… Aleksandra brings us up-to-date with the group she’s chaperoning. “James is still trying to encourage Shanumi to participate, while the other two think they have found some likely chants.”

When Shanumi sees the chants, all the progress James has made goes out the window. “I’m not singing that crap!” she announces.

“That’s what football crowds sing!” Keenan tells her.

“I don’t care,” she insists, “I’m not singing that!”

“Look,” Keenan argues, “you can’t rock up to a football match and sing Little Mix songs!”

She just sits there and rolls her eyes.

“Oh, this is pointless!” Keenan tells the others. He storms across the studio and out the door. Tariq looks at the other two, before deciding to follow Keenan out …

… “Encouraged by Eilidh’s enthusiasm, the choir are trying to come up with some suitable songs to sing,” Lorna tells us.

“We need tae find the right song for your voice, Gemma!” Eilidh tells the rainbow-haired girl. “It needs tae be something soft and tender!”

“I really like ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’,” Gemma tells her, “would that be any good?”

“Are you having a laugh?!” Matt asks, referring to the rainbow reference and Gemma’s multi-coloured hair.

Gemma belatedly realises the irony of her choice of song, and laughs. “No, honestly, I love that song,” she adds, “and I know all the words and everything!”

“No, no,” cries Eilidh, “that would be perfect! Your voice is just right for that song! We’re definitely doing that!” …

“That’s one of the songs she used to sing to me!” cries Lissie. “I love that song!”

… “After Keenan and Tariq walk out,” continues Aleksandra, “Shanumi opens up to James.”

“I can’t work with those two,” she tells him, “especially Keenan. He’s a dick!”

“Well, we’ve got a dare to do,” he replies, “so we’ve got no choice.”

“But we do, though, don’t we!” she argues.

“How d’you mean?”

“Well, think about it!” Shanumi explains her idea. “There’s two teams, right, so that means two lots of fans in the crowd, yeah?”

“Yeah,” James acknowledges.

“So, why don’t we get a proper competition going between the two lots of fans: who can sing the loudest or the best? You and me work with one lot, the other two work with the other lot.”

James ponders the idea for a moment, before replying, “I think that could work! And it would give more of a point to the whole thing as far as the crowd is concerned.”

“That’s settled then!” Shanumi declares …

… Lorna brings us the latest from the choir: “Eilidh desperately wants to showcase Tommy’s voice, but he’s proving a hard nut to crack!”

“Is there no way that we can persuade you tae sing solo?” Eilidh pleads with Tommy.

“No, sorry,” he replies, “I know I can’t. I’ll be so nervous my voice will just dry up!”

“I’ve just had an idea!” announces Ayla.

“Go on!” encourages Eilidh.

“You know that old song, ‘Stand By Me’,” she begins, continuing when everyone except Gemma confirms they do know it, “well, what if you sing it, Eilidh, but Tommy does the ‘bom-bom, bm-bm-bom-bom’ bit?”

Eilidh shrieks with delight. “Ayla, you’re a genius! That’s brilliant! God, Tommy, please say you’ll do it! Please!”

“I reckon I could do that!” he says.

Eilidh’s creative juices are really flowing now. “And Matt, can you click your fingers?” Matt demonstrates that he can. “That’s our percussion!” she decides. “Matt clicks his fingers, Tommy does the bassline, and us girls sing over the top! Brilliant! Oh my God, this is gonnae be so good!” …

… “Things are also going well with the buskers,” Lowri comments.

Mia is organising the others, checking that everyone knows what they are going to be doing. “So, I’ll get Coops to bring the van up with all our stuff loaded. That means we’ll have a couple of amps, a speaker and some mics. Plus all our instruments. Bradley, does your guitar have an amp socket so we can plug it in?”

“Yeah,” Bradley affirms.

“Good, so you bring your guitar. Jaz, you’re singing. Dylan, you can do the percussion, assuming you can keep time.” She looks questioningly at Dylan, who just looks blankly back at her. “Can you hit something when you’re supposed to hit it,” she clarifies, “not just randomly whenever the urge takes you?”

“Probably!” Dylan tells her, somewhat unhelpfully …

… “James has found Keenan and Tariq, and tells them Shanumi’s idea,” Aleksandra lets us know.

“So, what d’you reckon?” he asks them.

“Whatever!” says Keenan, sounding nonplussed by the idea.

“I think it’s the only way you’ll get her to do the dare,” James points out.

“Okay,” Tariq agrees, “let’s do it. You’re doing Chelsea, innit!” he informs James …

Back live in the studio, Trixie and Joe turn from watching the screen so that they are facing us once more.

“Well, it looks like all three groups may have finally got themselves sorted!” Trixie remarks.

“But, obviously, there’s a lot more work to be done before they’re ready to perform their dares!” Joe points out.

“So,” Trixie continues, “join us after the break on Britain’s Most Daring, and we’ll see how that goes! Don’t go away!”

Phil gets up and heads for the door.

“She said don’t go away!” Lissie reminds him, playfully.

“When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go!” he informs her, and exits.

“And he’s got to go!” I add, eliciting a giggle from the two girls.

Episode 4 (Part 4)
 

Even though it’s buried deep within the sleeping bag, I can tell that Lissie’s foot is wiggling away like mad! I love the way that the more excited she gets the less control she has over her foot! Best of all, she doesn’t even realise she’s doing it!

“Lissie,” I say, unable to resist the temptation, “can you keep your foot still, please? It’s distracting me!”

Maddie sniggers as her younger sister looks up, her face a picture of innocence.

“Mam!” she protests. “I’m not even doing anything!”

“It’s wiggling!” I tell her.

“You can’t even see it!”

“I can see enough to know it’s wiggling!” She gives me an injured look. Deciding I’ve let the joke go far enough, I kneel down on the floor next to her and rub the top of her head. She looks up at me again, and I take the opportunity to give her a light kiss on her forehead. “I’m only teasing;” I tell her, “you carry on wiggling, I know how excited you are about all this! We all are!”

I retake my place on the sofa, just as Phil returns and plonks himself back down next to me.

When we return to the studio from the ad-break, we can see that Trixie and Joe have been joined by Aleksandra, Lowri, and Lorna, all of whom have glammed-up for the evening. Joe, we notice, is wearing his dark glasses once more.

“Welcome back to Britain’s Most Daring!” Trixie enthuses. “I’m Trixie Stonehill …

We wait, expectantly, for Joe to follow in the familiar manner, but he remains silent.

“Joe …” prompts Trixie. Still nothing. Trixie snaps her fingers in front of his face. “Joe!” she barks.

He gives his head a little shake, as if returning from a very pleasant day-dream. “Sorry,” he says, taking off his shades, “I might have got a bit distracted there for a moment!” He raises his eyebrows to the camera, whilst Aleksandra winks and Lowri wraps an arm around his waist. “Where were we?” he asks.

“I’m Trixie Stonehill …” Trixie repeats.

“… and I’m going for a lie-down in a darkened room!” he quips.

Trixie shakes her head slowly and rolls her eyes. “Before the break we saw our three groups of daredevils start to get themselves sorted for their dares.”

“As you can see,” Joe continues, “with us in the studio are wor three lovely ladies, who’ve been keeping an eye on the groups this week.”

“They’re here to tell us how the rehearsals went,” Trixie informs us. “Let’s start with our footballing group! Aleksandra …?”

Aleksandra takes a step forward. She is wearing a gravity-defying dress, which begins at a point that reveals the top part of her breasts, but nothing untoward, and flows down to her ankles. The aquamarine colour is matched by the gloves that run up to just below her elbows and also by her high-heeled shoes. The whole ensemble is set off by her sparkling blue eyes.

“So, after the difficulties they had to start with,” she reports, “they manage to work together enough to find some suitable chants.”

As she talks, the big screen in the studio fills with images of Keenan, Tariq, James, and Shanumi working as described. After a few seconds, we leave the studio and pick up these images, leaving Aleksandra as just a voice once more.

“Although they are going to be doing the dare in two pairs, they need to have some chants that both sets of fans will sing. Of course, they can’t be too rude, either! After a lot of searching, they think they have enough. Now they have to decide how they are going to arrange the competition between the fans.”

“So, how is it going to work, exactly,” asks Tariq.

“Well,” says James, “it seems to me each pair has got one singer and one non-singer. So, how about if the non-singer encourages the crowd to get involved, and then the singer leads the chant? Would that work?”

“And we make sure the fans know that they’re trying to be better at it than the other team’s fans,” Shanumi reminds them.

“So, we both do one chant,” Tariq checks, “then both do another, innit?”

“Yeah, that’s it!” James tells him.

Aleksandra’s voiceover resumes, as we see the group, seemingly all happy again, continuing to plan their dare. “Now they are clear about what they are going to do, and they have chosen some chants that they think will work, there is one more thing they need to do.”

“If you’re Chelsea,” Keenan tells James and Shanumi, “you need to be wearing blue. We can always get some club scarves, but you have to be wearing blue generally as well.”

“I’ll just buy a Chelsea shirt and wear it over my other stuff,” James informs them.

“I’ve got plenty of blue outfits,” Shanumi adds, “so that’s no problem!”

“Obviously, we’ll be wearing claret and blue,” says Keenan. “That means you can’t wear your QPR shirt!” he tells Tariq.

“Would I?” Tariq teases.

“With that sorted,” Aleksandra continues, “the group are confident they have done all they need to do to prepare for their dare. They agree to meet up at Wembley Stadium at 4 o’clock on Friday, giving them plenty of time before they have to be pitch-side.”

During the last part of her last speech, we leave the big-screen images and return to the studio, where Aleksandra is talking into camera.

“Thank-you, Aleks,” Joe says, as she takes a step back to realign herself with her fellow presenters.

“So, you’ve been with them all this week,” Trixie says, “how well do you think they prepared?”

“It was hard for them, I think,” she replies, “because they have not got a group that is confident with singing. We already know Shanumi can be sometimes difficult, and the two younger guys found it hard to deal with her. I think it was important that James was there, because he was able to bring the others together. But how well the dare is for them, it will depend on what mood Shanumi is in when they get to Wembley. So, it is difficult to predict!”

“Well, we’ll take a look at how it went for them a little later on,” Joe tells us.

“Right now,” continues Trixie, “here’s Lorna to tell us how the week was for the choir.”

Lorna takes her place front of stage. She has gone for a more demure look than the others, with a navy-blue satin dress that comes to just below her knees. The sleeves are made of a see-through lace with a navy-blue pattern weaving its way down each arm.

Once again, as she speaks the big-screen images begin, and we soon transfer to those, leaving Lorna to voiceover the images.

“Having chosen two of the three songs, the group get stuck when they try to pick a third. So, instead of spending too much time on that to start with, they set about learning the other two. With her experience of singing in a choir, the others look to Eilidh for inspiration.”

Behind Lorna’s voiceover, we hear Ayla, Eilidh, Gemma, Matt, and Tommy rehearsing ‘Stand By Me’. Lorna stops speaking, to allow us to hear a bit of the song more clearly. When she resumes, they have switched to ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’, and we hear Matt trying out various different whistled accompaniments.

“Eilidh is really keen for everyone to get a chance in the spotlight,” Lorna says, “and that means some intricate whistling for Matt. By the time they break, to return home, the songs are starting to take shape. But they still haven’t come up with a third song, and they all know that to get to the standard they want, they are going to need a lot more rehearsal time.”

“We’ve got to do this properly guys!” urges Ayla. “It’s not just some dare, it’s for a really good cause, and, obviously, there’s William and Harry.”

“And Meghan, probably!” adds Eilidh,

“We need to have as much time as possible to practice,” agrees Matt.

“They agree to go home for a day, to pick up a suitable outfit to wear for the performance, and then travel up to Glasgow and spend the rest of the week rehearsing solidly. It’s a big commitment, but one which everyone is more than happy to agree to. By the time they get together again, Eilidh has come up with a third song that meets everyone’s approval. As Friday approaches, nerves begin to set in, but Ayla’s positivity keeps the others’ nerves in check.”

By the time she finishes, we are back in the studio with Lorna front of stage. After concluding, she steps back into the line-up with the others.

“They’ve really put a lot of time and effort into this, haven’t they?!” Trixie comments.

“Oh, they’ve been amazing!” declares Lorna. “So dedicated! You saw it in the film, but when I was with them, it was really striking just how much importance they were placing on not just doing the dare but giving their very best for Heads Together. That was always what I kept hearing, ‘we must do this properly’, over and over again! It was really impressive! Just for the sheer amount of effort they’ve put into this, they deserve to do really well!”

“And we’ll see how their performance turned out a bit later on,” Trixie states.

“Time to see how wor final group spent their week,” Joe says. “They had the added problem of keeping wor Lowrie under control!”

Lowri gives a shrug, as if to say “I don’t know what you mean!” as she steps forward. She is wearing a tight black skirt that ends midway down her thighs. Above this she has a red lacy top, that is sheer to some degree or other throughout, with the chest panel comfortably the least see-through part of the garment. She has a red rose in her hair to complement the top.

The format is exactly the same as for the other two groups earlier.

“I travelled down to meet Mia in Weymouth, as she and her friend Coops gathered together all their equipment. Coops has access to a large van, which he’s borrowed for a few days, so early on Friday morning they loaded up and headed for Bristol. For some reason, they wouldn’t let me bring the maracas I’d found lying around!”

We see Lowri brandishing a pair of maracas, before Mia tells her “no way!”, prompting Lowri to toss the maracas over each shoulder and walk out of shot.

The van pulls up in the car park of a standard chain hotel in Bristol, and we see Mia, Coops, and Lowri waiting for the others to arrive. As Lowri’s voiceover continues, we see first Dylan, then Bradley, and finally Jaz join the group.

“As they begin to gather in sunny Bristol,” she continues, “Mia is trying to plan the busking session in her mind. She and Coops have songs that they are familiar with, though Coops won’t be playing tomorrow, of course. She is hoping that Bradley and Jaz have brought some songs with them, as instructed. When they arrive, though, she discovers that Bradley has forgotten.”

“For God’s sake, Bradley,” Mia cries, “one simple job!”

“It’s no problem,” he replies, “I can pop back home and get some; it won’t take long!”

“But we need to have time to practice them!”

“It’ll be alright!” Bradley tells her. “You worry too much!”

“As Bradley goes to get some songs,” Lowri goes on, “the rest of them find a room in the hotel large enough to set up the equipment. I help Dylan explore the percussion section.”

We see Dylan and Lowri examining a number of different percussion instruments, and are maybe surprised to see that, far from ditching the maracas, Lowri obviously retrieved them and brought them with her after all! She gives them a quick shake and grins mischievously at the camera.

“After Bradley returns with his music, they discover that these new songs are not really what Mia was expecting,” reports Lowri. “She is not happy, and tells him that he is now going to have a very minor role tomorrow morning. He doesn’t take this well, and, with less than 12 hours to go before they start busking, the tension is mounting.”

Lowri steps back into line, as Joe moves across to talk to her.

“What is it with you?” he asks. “Can you not go more than five minutes without playing with your maracas?”

“If you got some, you play with ’em!” she replies, with a twinkle in her eye.

“So, we saw that there was some tension in the group.”

“Yes, there was,” Lowri confirms. “Mia and Bradley are two very different characters, and we know how abrasive Mia can be. Bradley just seems to be able to find ways to rub her up the wrong way! They’ve got the potential to do really well at this dare, but only if they can resolve their differences. Otherwise things could go very badly indeed for them!”

“They might need your help then!” Joe states.

“Oh, I’ll have my maracas out to help bring in the crowds, don’t you worry!” she tells him, in her usual outrageous manner.

Joe is lost for words, having met his match in this raven-haired Welsh livewire.

“After the break,” Trixie announces, “we’ll see how the buskers got on, and we’ll catch the other performances on our Britain’s Most Daring Musical Extravaganza. Join us, then!”

“She’s mad!” Lissie decides.

I assume she’s referring to Lowri, but I check anyway. “You mean Lowri?” I ask her.

“Yeah!” she confirms.

“I really like her!” states Maddie. “She’s different, and she makes it all more fun!”

“She’s certainly a character!” remarks Phil. He turns his head towards me, “She reminds me of you, Emma, when you were younger!”

“I was never as bad as that!” I protest.

“I don’t know,” he smiles, “you had your moments!”

Episode 4 (Part 5)
 

I don’t know about anyone else, but I am incredibly nervous. With the previous shows on Britain’s Most Daring, I’ve been excited, particularly when it’s come to Gemma’s dares, but this week is different. I don’t know what the reason is: whether it’s the changed format; the fact that it’s a group dare, meaning Gemma’s fate isn’t just in her own hands; or whether, as I suspect, it’s because of the enormity of the dare facing her and her fellow choir members. Whatever the reason, I am definitely nervous on her behalf. I don’t know if I’m the only one feeling like that.

My curiosity gets the better of me, and I ask, “Is anyone else really nervous at the moment?”

“I am!” admits Lissie. “But I’m really excited at the same time! Does that make any sense?”

“It does!” I assure her. “How about you, Maddie?”

“Yeah,” she agrees, “I’m quite nervous. I really want to see Gemma do her dare, but I also want it to be over already!”

“Good,” I say, “I’m glad it’s not just me!”

“Hello, and welcome back to Britain’s Most Daring’s Musical Extravaganza!” Trixie says.

“… and I’m Joe Denecker,” Joe adds, 15 minutes too late. It earns him a playful smack on the arm from his co-presenter.

We see that Trixie and Joe are now alone once more, the other three women having departed.

“Well, we’ve seen the groups rehearsing,” Trixie reminds us, “and now it’s time to see if all their effort has paid off!”

“Indeed it is!” Joe remarks. “Last night there was the little matter of a football match at Wembley Stadium.”

“That’s right,” continues Trixie, “an F. A. Cup Semi-Final tie between Chelsea and Aston Villa, with 90,000 fans packed into the stadium.”

“Helping to warm-up the crowd before the game were James, Keenan, Shanumi, and Tariq,” Joe says. “We stuck Trixie in the posh seats to let her see what wor daredevils got up to!”

We join Trixie inside Wembley Stadium, which we can see is filling up nicely. She is wrapped up well against the cool of the evening. Behind her there is plenty of action on the pitch, with players from both teams warming-up.

“Hello and welcome to Wembley!” she greets us. “We’re about half-an-hour from kick-off, but more importantly, we’re less than ten minutes away from our daredevils’ big moment. Let’s go down to Aleksandra and see how they’re feeling!”

Aleksandra is with the four daredevils, down in the tunnel area. She is also well wrapped up, in a fake fur coat and thick leggings. The three guys are wearing football shirts; two in the claret and blue of Aston Villa, whilst James is wearing Chelsea blue. Shanumi has a blue jumper along with her jeans, and has a Chelsea scarf wrapped around her neck.

“Thanks, Trixie,” says Aleksandra, taking her cue. “So, everyone, how are you feeling right now?”

“I’m incredibly nervous!” admits James. “I’m confident I know what we’re doing, but just look how many people there are out there!”

“What about you, Shanumi?” Aleksandra asks the person she has identified as key to the dare’s success.

“It’s mad!” Shanumi declares. “There’s so much noise! It’s gonna be a real challenge to get everyone joining in with us!”

“Can you do it?” Aleksandra enquires.

“Yeah, ’course we can!” Shanumi replies, confidently. It appears she’s up for it, which is good for the group’s chances of doing well.

“There you are, Trixie,” Aleksandra sums up, “we’re all waiting for the call to go out and start getting the crowd going!”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” we hear the Wembley compere announce over the sound system, “it’s time to crank the noise level up a notch! And here to help get the place rocking, please give a big Wembley welcome to the Britain’s Most Daring Capital Crew Plus One!”

The three Londoners, plus James, enter the stadium arena. As they split into their pairs and make their way towards the relevant sets of fans, we hear James’ voice over the sound system.

“Hello, Wembley!” he cries. He gets a half-hearted cheer in reply. “Oh, come on,” he says, “you can do much better than that! Hello, Wembley!” This time the volume from the fans has gone up considerably.

“What we’re gonna do,” James explains, “is find out who’s got the loudest fans! We want you to give your best chants, and see if you can out-sing the opposition!”

An impromptu chant of “Chelsea” begins at one end of the stadium, reminding James of the biggest challenge facing them this evening: the unpredictability of football fans.

“So,” Tariq takes over, “Villa fans, we’re going to show everyone that we’re the loudest, innit?” He raises his arms to encourage the Villa fans to cheer. They respond with gusto.

“Not a chance!” exclaims James. “You’re up against the mighty Blue Army!” He elicits an even bigger cheer from the Chelsea faithful.

“Okay, let’s start the competition!” announces Tariq. “The Villa are going first!”

Keenan’s voice is heard, starting the first chant: “Come on you Villa!” He points to the crowd to join in. Judging by the noise, a substantial section of the Villa fans are singing.

“Not bad!” comments James. “But we can do better than that!”

“Come on you Blues!” Shanumi sings and encourages the Chelsea fans. They respond in good voice, but maybe not as loud as the Villa chant.

The second chant begins okay, with the Villa fans quickly joining Keenan as he sings “Aston Villa, Aston Villa FC, we’re by far the greatest team the world has ever seen!” But, things start to go wrong after this. As Shanumi is trying to get the response going from “Super Chelsea”, the Villa fans begin chanting, “Are you City in disguise?” loudly enough to drown out the Chelsea fans.

By the time Keenan is ready to launch the final chant, a simple “Villa” followed by three claps, the Villa fans are busy going through their own repertoire of increasingly-rude chants directed at their fiercest rivals, Birmingham City. They are no longer remotely interested in Keenan.

The Chelsea fans have also given up on the competition, ignoring Shanumi’s last effort completely. The daredevils end by thanking the fans, and walking off, somewhat disconsolately.

“It started okay,” James tells Aleksandra, once they’ve got back into the tunnel, “but we couldn’t keep the Villa fans under control.”

“What a load of crap!” is Shanumi’s damning verdict.

Back in the studio, the four daredevils, together with Aleksandra, have all joined Trixie and Joe.

“Well, we heard what you thought of it last night,” Joe says, “but, after sleeping on it, how do you think it went?”

“It could have been worse!” Keenan says.

“How?” asks Shanumi.

Before she gets an answer, Trixie steps in. “Well, we’ve waited a long time to see them tonight, but they are here, so let’s go over to our Dare Attempt Performance Analysts to see what they make of all that!”

The DAPAs are, as we have come to expect, immaculately turned out once more. They each press their keypad to reveal their assessment of the football-chanting dare. Dan awards 5 points, while Danielle is, unusually, more generous, giving a 6. That makes 11 points in total. Normally that would be a safe score, but tonight, of course, there are only three groups, so who knows.

“With it being a group dare this week,” Trixie explains, “it’s the group with the lowest score who will have to take part in tonight’s Live Dare-Off.” She tells the current group, “And it could well be you!”

They nod, then move to take their seats to warm applause from the studio audience.

“Next up,” Trixie continues, “let’s see how Bradley, Dylan, Jaz, and Mia got on with their dare to go busking!”

Joe takes over, “After all the excitement of the football, we gave Trixie a Saturday morning on the streets of Bristol to recover. That’s where she found wor buskers!”

Trixie is standing on a bridge overlooking the trendy Harbourside area of Bristol, next to the River Avon. She is wearing a bright yellow jumper and her skinny jeans.

“This is Bristol Harbourside,” she informs us, “and this is where our buskers are going to spend the next four hours entertaining the shoppers and tourists down in this popular waterfront area of the city. While I try to find them, let’s join Lowri who is drawing in the crowds as only she can!”

Lowri, wearing a clinging lime-green jumper and tight navy-blue leggings, has already got a substantial crowd of people behind her as she does her introduction to camera.

“Yes, hello,” she says, “and welcome to Bristol, a really lovely city that just happens to be the wrong side of the Severn!”

The crowd behind her boo at her unfavourable comment, but she turns the jeers to cheers as she turns to them and says, “We’re here to have some fun, aren’t we guys?!” She shakes her maracas by way of encouragement.

The camera pans along to the right and alights upon our buskers. Mia counts them in, and Dylan begins tapping away on some bongos, accompanied by Bradley’s guitar, whilst Mia plays ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ on her clarinet. Jaz has hold of a bucket, into which people are throwing money. When the song comes to an end, it garners an appreciative round of applause from those gathered around. Mia switches to her penny whistle, and they start up with an Irish-sounding jig that has one or two of the more enthusiastic youngsters in the crowd up and dancing.

We switch back to Trixie, who is now making her way through the crowds towards the buskers. She catches sight of Dylan, bucket in hand, swaying gently to the rhythm of the song we can hear Jaz singing, the Louis Armstrong classic ‘What A Wonderful World’. As we join the group, we can see that Mia is accompanying Jaz on the keyboard. In the background Lowri is attempting to engage various members of the crowd in a slow dance!

Trixie catches hold of Bradley’s arm. He is currently unoccupied, so she takes the chance to ask, “How’s it going?”

“Yeah, it’s going well!” he tells her. “I’m amazed how many people have turned up!”

“It’s certainly impressive!” Trixie comments. “Are you nervous at all?”

“Not too bad at the moment!” he replies.

We jump forward in time, something we know we’ve done because the music in the background has changed. We are now being treated to a virtuoso performance of Beethoven’s ‘Für Elise’ by Mia on her keyboard, which she has switched to piano-mode. Dylan still has the bucket, with Lowri in tow, so Trixie seizes the opportunity to have a quick word with Jaz.

“Jaz,” she begins, “how does it feel, singing in front of all these people?”

“It was nerve-wracking to begin with,” Jaz tells her, “but as I’ve got into it, I’ve got more relaxed. I’m starting to enjoy it more now!”

“You’ve certainly pulled in the crowds!” Trixie remarks.

“That was Lowri, mainly,” Jaz admits. “She went on the local radio breakfast show and told everyone to get down here! By the time we started setting up, people were already arriving!”

Another time-jump allows us to hear Jaz singing once more, this time the powerful ballad made famous by Whitney Houston ‘One Moment In Time’. Jaz’s rendition stands up well, giving her the chance to show off her vocal range, which the crowd applaud appreciatively.

We get one more glimpse of the fun that the bystanders on the Harbourside are enjoying, as we see Lowri, Dylan, and Bradley immersed amongst a section of the crowd, all performing the Hokey Cokey, as Jaz belts out the instructions backed, as ever, by Mia’s keyboard playing. Everyone is clearly having a blast!

The film finishes with a shot that, we presume, was taken immediately after the session had ended. Lowri is in the centre of a line, flanked by two daredevils on each side. On cue they leap in the air, before Lowri shouts, “Bristol, you rocked!” and launches her maracas into the crowd.

The whole crew have joined Trixie and Joe in the studio, and everyone is smiling broadly, remembering the good time they had earlier in the day.

“That looked like a lot of fun!” Joe declares.

“It was amazing,” Jaz tells him, “absolutely amazing!”

“Have you ever busked in front of so many people?” he asks Mia.

“No, that was way more than I’m used to! It gave me such a buzz!”

“I’ve got to say,” Dylan interrupts, “that this person here,” he points to Lowri, “was brilliant! She gave the whole thing a real boost!”

Mia shoots him a disapproving look. She’s realised that might not be a wise thing to say, however true it might be, at least not until after the DAPAs have given their score. It is, after all, supposed to be the daredevils performing the dare, not some madcap presenter!

“Well,” comments Trixie, “I had a great time! But let’s see what the DAPAs make of it.”

Danielle quickly makes an 8 appear on the screen above her head, whilst Dan thinks for a bit longer before awarding a maximum 10. A score of 18 indicates the DAPAs are impressed by the buskers, and is going to be very hard to beat!

“Well done!” Trixie tells them. “That’s a fantastic score! And our first ever maximum 10!”

Lowri steps forward. “One more thing,” she says, “we’ve counted the money in the bucket, and we’ll be giving Caring In Bristol £2,600!”

This announcement is received with a thunderous round of applause from the audience, which Trixie and Joe join in with. It’s a fabulous end to a very well-performed dare!

“We’ve seen two of wor musical dares,” Joe points out, “but we’ve still got one more to come.”

“Coming next, we’ve got something really very special indeed!” Trixie says, enticingly. “You really don’t want to miss it, so make sure you join us when we come back on Britain’s Most Daring!”

Maddie looks across at me. “What does that mean, ‘something really very special indeed’?” she asks.

“You know as much as I do!” I tell her.

“I think it means it’s really good!” says Lissie.

“I’m inclined to agree, Lissie,” her father adds.

I look down and see the bottom of the sleeping bag moving back and forth rapidly!

Episode 4 (Part 6)
 

The ad-break seems to drag on interminably! Trixie’s teasing words, going into the break, combined with the fact that we know that it’s Gemma’s group dare we are about to watch, has us intrigued. Normally, I’m totally disinterested in the adverts, just letting them wash over me, but right now I’m actively willing each one to vacate the screen! I don’t imagine Toyota, the Halifax, Pedigree Chum and all the others have been on the receiving end of such hatred very often before!

I’m not the only one, as a very ironic “Hallelujah!” from my darling husband greets the arrival of the theme music at the end of the break!

If the technology existed to turn nervous energy into electricity, we could power the entire National Grid from our living room!

As always, Trixie greets our return: “Welcome back to our special Britain’s Most Daring Musical Extravaganza!”

“Before the break, we saw wor Wembley wonders at work, and then went busking in Bristol,” says Joe, alliteratively. “So, we’ve just one more group to see.”

“Ayla, Eilidh, Gemma, Matt, and Tommy were dared to form a choir,” Trixie reminds us. “As if that wasn’t enough, we pulled out all the stops and got them a slot in a very special concert.”

“Heads Together is a campaign to raise awareness of mental health issues in society, particularly in young people,” Joe tells us, “and also aims to secure funding and raise money for charities working in this area.”

“Last night, the Heads Together Concert took place in Glasgow, attended by Prince William and Prince Harry, who, together with the Duchess of Cambridge, are patrons of the campaign,” Trixie goes on. “Plus, of course, the royal bride-to-be, Meghan, was there as well!

“I was lucky enough to have a ticket to this one-off event!” Joe states.

“Thanks to the incredible generosity of the Heads Together team,” continues Trixie, “our choir was given a 10-minute slot in the concert!”

“When we set this dare up,” Joe reveals, “we didn’t really have any idea of what to expect. But none of us could have possibly imagined what actually occurred last night!”

“It was so special,” Trixie adds, “that we’ve shunted the entire Channel 4 Saturday night schedule back to make room to show you the whole 10 minutes, in full!”

“If you were at the concert last night, you’ll know what we mean already,” Joe says, knowingly. “But if you weren’t, then sit back and enjoy 10 minutes of TV magic!” He takes a step forward as the camera zooms in for a close-up shot of his face. “This,” he adds, “is going to blow your mind!”

I grip Phil’s hand, the tension almost unbearable.

We join Joe at the back of an upper part of the Glasgow Concert Hall. On the distant stage below, is a man standing, talking to the audience. Eagle-eyed viewers, who know their comedians, will recognise him as the Glasgow stand-up, Kevin Bridges.

Joe talks in a hushed tone, so as not to disturb the audience nearby. “Here at the Heads Together Concert, it’s almost time for wor daredevils to perform. I’m incredibly nervous, so I can’t begin to imagine how they must be feeling right now! Let’s go down to Lorna, who’s backstage with them, and see how they’re coping!”

Lorna and the five choir members are waiting in the wings. All five are looking very presentable. Eilidh has a floral-patterned knee-length dress, whilst Gemma, her long hair back to its natural blonde, is sporting a smart blouse in Oxford and Cambridge blues above a dark skirt that hugs her hips and ends halfway towards her knees. Matt and Tommy are both wearing dark jackets; Tommy with smart jeans, Matt with more formal trousers. Ayla, we see, is wearing her makeover outfit from last week’s show, without the boa. It seems she is feeling confident enough to appear with plenty of cleavage on show thanks to the plunging neckline of her dress.

Quietly, Lorna asks Eilidh, “How are you feeling?”

“Petrified!” admits Eilidh. “I’ve got such bad butterflies!”

Looking for any sign of how Gemma is coping, we see she has got her hands clenched together and she is bobbing her head back and forward slightly. It’s a sure sign that she, too, is incredibly nervous.

“Matt,” Lorna turns to the punk-rocker look-a-like, “nervous?”

“I just want to get out there!” he tells her. “All this waiting around is doing for me!”

“Come on, Bridges,” urges Ayla, “shut up and introduce us!”

Our screen fills with a close-up of Kevin Bridges as he responds, unknowingly, to Ayla’s instruction.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” he begins, “we’ve got something a little different for you! I’m sure lots of you have been gripped by the TV show that’s set the nation talking. We’re incredibly lucky tae be part of that show tonight, as we get tae witness some of the Britain’s Most Daring daredevils take on their latest dare, live on stage. These guys have never done anything like this before in their lives! So, please give a massive Glasgow welcome tae the BMD Northern Singers …!”

He exits stage left, as Matt, Ayla, Eilidh, Gemma, and Tommy walk on from the opposite side. The curtain remains in place, giving us an indication that the choir are going to sing acapella. To perform at a concert like this with musical backing would have taken guts, but singing unaccompanied shows enormous bravery on their part. The audience respond, by taking their welcoming applause up a level. The five daredevils take up their positions, smiling nervously, and wait for quiet in the auditorium.

Four pairs of onstage eyes are focussed on Eilidh, watching for her signal to begin the first song. She gives a subtle nod, and they all turn their gaze forwards, into the darkness beyond the bright stage lights.

We hear Matt whistle two identical notes, followed by a rapid few notes that then return him to his starting point. The pattern is naggingly familiar, and he quickly repeats it. As he begins his third run through the same pattern, Eilidh’s voice joins him.

“When you’re weary, … feeling small, …” she sings in a quiet soprano voice, and the song is revealed to be ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’. “When tears are in … your eyes, … I’ll dry them all.”

The other three join Eilidh, singing in two-part harmony, with Tommy’s bass voice underpinning the girls to great effect.

“I’m on your side, … oh, when times get rough, …” they sing, building the volume as they continue, “and friends just can’t be found …”. Gemma, Ayla, and Tommy switch to an “aah-ed” backing as Eilidh completes the verse: “Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.”

After Matt has completed another two rounds of his whistling pattern, Ayla takes the lead for the next verse. Her voice is stronger than Eilidh’s, and full of passion. Once more the others join in for the latter part of the verse.

The final verse is sung in full harmony by all four singers, with Matt still whistling his accompaniment. When they come to the end, they hold the last note for a bit as the applause starts. The audience have loved their rendition, and clap and cheer vociferously. As we watch, the nervousness and tension that was evident in the five daredevils seems to evaporate, and they are able to relax and start to really enjoy the occasion.

“Thank you,” says Eilidh, smiling broadly, “thank-you so much! We are so incredibly honoured tae be able tae come and sing for you tonight! As you know, we’re on a dare show, and that’s how we’ve come tae be here. But this is so much more than a dare tae us! Heads Together is such an important campaign, and the work you’re doing is so vital!” She is forced to pause as a spontaneous round of applause breaks out. She smiles and waits to continue. “For us, the most important thing you can do, if you know someone who has mental health issues,” she tells everyone, “is tae be there for them. Be a shoulder tae cry on, or an ear tae listen, or just a person tae be company! And that’s kind of what our next song is all about!” She glances up and down the line, to check the others are all ready, then gives another nod.

“Bom, bom, bm-bm-bom, bom,” begins Tommy, with Matt clicking his fingers by way of percussive accompaniment. The audience react instantly to the distinctive introduction to ‘Stand By Me’. By the time the applause has died down, Tommy and Matt have almost reached the end of the opening bars. We see Eilidh take a breath as she prepares to bring her voice into the mix.

“When the night … has come, … and the land is dark, … and the moon … is the only … light we’ll see,” she sings. Her voice lacks the tremendous passion that Ben E King gave the original version, but her delivery is forceful enough to give the lyrics the impetus they need. She sings the first verse and chorus solo; as she starts the second verse, the other girls provide a bed of “oohs” for her to lay her vocals on top of.

When we reach the musical interlude, the audience go crazy as Matt delivers an amazing whistled solo during which he improvises around the tune we know so well, all the time remembering to keep clicking his fingers as well! Eilidh’s voice crashes over the end of his solo, as, together with the “oohs”, “bom-boms”, and clicks, she builds the song to its crescendo, before bringing it to a halt on a long-held note that all the others share as Matt gives four final clicks and they fall silent.

The noise from the auditorium in response is almost beyond description. Whistles, shrieks and screams all mix with loud cheering and wild applause. On stage, the five look a little overwhelmed by the reception they’re getting, but they all have smiles as wide as their faces will allow.

When the applause finally subsides, Ayla speaks. “Oh my gosh, thank-you, thank-you!” she tells them. Taking everyone by surprise, she then yells, “Hello, Glasgow!” They respond with more cheering and screaming. “I’ve always wanted to do that!” she laughs. Then she changes her tone, becoming more serious. “We’ve got one more song we want to do for you,” she informs them, “and this one is very special to one of us up here. So, I’m going to let Gemma introduce it.”

This is it!

A quick glance from both Maddie and Lissie tells me that they, too, are on tenterhooks!

“Thanks, Ayla,” Gemma begins, her gentle Geordie voice providing some variety to the Scottish accents we’ve been hearing. “When I was 10, my Mam had a nervous breakdown, and she wasn’t able to look after me and my sister. A family we knew very kindly took us in and looked after us, while Mam got the treatment she needed. It was an amazing act of kindness, and I’ve never forgotten what they did for the two of us. They had two girls of their own, and the youngest was a little darlin’, about 3 or 4 at the time. Every night, when she went to bed, I used to wait till the light went out and her Mam went back downstairs. Then, I used to sneak into her room and sing to her until she went to sleep. This next song is my favourite one that I used to sing to her, and I think she used to like it too. So, Lissie, I know you’ll be watching! This one’s for you, sweetheart!”

The hairs on the back of my neck begin standing up as Gemma starts her speech, and by the time she finishes I am feeling tingly all over. Phil puts his arm around me, sensing my emotional overload, and pulls me into him.

Lissie is now beyond excitement, and her foot has given up trying to match her adrenaline levels.

Maddie, I notice, is just sitting in her chair, mouth agape at what she’s just heard.

I watch the next two minutes through a blurred veil of tears, unable to keep my emotions in check.

While Gemma has been speaking, Eilidh has shuffled along the line so that Gemma is now in the middle. A quick nod from Eilidh is the cue for the two Scots lasses to begin. They hum a brief introduction, giving Gemma a chance to get her breathing right and also to pitch the song correctly.

The moment they hear her tender, fragile voice deliver the opening line, the audience are captivated.

“Somewhere over the rainbow, … way up high, …” she croons, “there’s a land that I heard of, once, in a lullaby.” Tommy’s deep voice adds to the hummed backing as Gemma continues, “Somewhere over the rainbow, … skies are blue, … and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.”

The “mmmms” become “aaaahs” and increase in volume a little as Gemma goes on, “Someday I’ll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me, … where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops that’s where you’ll find me.” As Gemma finds herself above the chimney tops, she shuts her eyes, keeping them shut for the rest of the song.

Once more the backing changes, this time to “ooohs”, for the next part. As the bluebirds are mentioned, so Matt gives a couple of whistled trills for added effect.

“Somewhere over the rainbow, … bluebirds fly, … birds fly over the rainbow; why, then, oh why can’t I?” Gemma asks plaintively.

The backing stops, leaving Gemma’s wavering voice to finish the song alone. “If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, … why, … oh why … can’t I?” She allows the last note to fade to nothingness and wipes away a tear that has formed in the corner of her eye, before she opens them and smiles.

If the response to ‘Stand By Me’ had been almost beyond description, the reception that Gemma’s song gets takes it to a level far beyond any rainbow! The ovation is noisy, long, and thoroughly deserved!

As Kevin Bridges returns to the stage and encourages the audience to give one more round of applause to the BMD Northern Singers, we come back to Joe in the audience.

“Wow, what can I say!” he exclaims. “I’m blown away! I don’t have words!”

Returning to the studio, we find Lorna with Trixie and Joe. There is no sign of the five daredevils. The reason for this soon becomes clear.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Trixie cries, with heartfelt enthusiasm, “please give it up for Ayla, Matt, Tommy, Gemma, and Eilidh!”

A tumultuous reception greets them as the five walk on. They still seem overwhelmed by the response: Matt shakes his head, and Eilidh takes hold of Gemma’s hand.

“Joe didn’t have words last night,” Trixie declares, “and I’m struggling now! That was unbelievable! Just, you guys, amazing!”

Lorna helps her out. “They put so much work into that, and boy did it pay off! They absolutely, totally, deserve every bit of the reception they got last night! I was watching, backstage, and I was in tears! It was just magical!”

“Eilidh,” Trixie asks, “did you ever imagine it would turn out like that?”

“God, no!” Eilidh says. “We just wanted tae do justice tae the occasion, you know? It’s such an important cause, we were determined not tae make a mockery of the whole thing.”

“And Matt,” Joe says, “that whistling was something else!”

“I just really got into it!” Matt reveals. “When it got to my solo, I just went mad! After I’d done it, I had a quick look at Eilidh in case she was going mental at me! But she seemed okay with it!”

“Okay?!” Eilidh responds, “I was loving it!”

“And as for you, Gemma,” Trixie begins, “the emotion you put into that was so inspiring!”

“I nearly didn’t get through it,” Gemma shares with us all, “the memories and everything were starting to get to me!”

“We noticed you sang a lot of the song with your eyes shut,” Trixie comments, “was that a way of coping with the emotion?”

“No, that was probably the worst thing I could have done! I don’t know what made me do it! But it was like I was transported back to the bedroom all those years ago, and I was singing to little Lissie all over again! That’s when I started to struggle!”

“Ladies and gentlemen, once again, please!” urges Trixie, and the audience respond willingly.

“Well, I know what I’m awarding them,” remarks Joe, “but let’s find out if the DAPAs are in tune with the rest of the country!”

Almost immediately that we go over to the DAPAs we find out that they are. Both Dan and Danielle award the highest possible marks, giving the choir a perfect 20 points. Anything less would have been a travesty!

“Fantastic!” says Joe. He holds his hand up for quiet, and adds, “And one more thing, before we let them go. We’ve been in touch with Heads Together today, and I can exclusively announce that the performance will be available as a download straight after tonight’s show finishes. You can get it from the Heads Together website, or from channel4.com, and all proceeds will go to the Heads Together charities fund. A CD will be released on Monday and will be available in all the normal outlets.”

“Okay,” Trixie says, “we’ve still got the little matter of tonight’s Live Dare-Off to come! James, Keenan, Shanumi, and Tariq will be competing against each other to try to remain on Britain’s Most Daring. That’s coming up right after this break!”

Almost as soon as the theme music ends, Lissie’s phone begins pinging frantically. Maddie’s phone is also warbling away. The ad-break will be spent checking the incoming messages.

I need to compose myself, so choose to get up and visit the loo.

Episode 4 (Part 7)
 

By the time I return, the ad-break is coming to an end. The girls are still swiping and tapping their phone screens frenetically.

“Welcome back!” says Trixie. “We have just seen the most amazing dare performance ever, and all three of our groups have done wonderfully well! But, unfortunately, someone has to leave the show tonight!”

“Yep, thems the rules!” remarks Joe.

“The group with the lowest score will take part in tonight’s Live Dare-Off,” Trixie states.

“With 11 points, wor football chanters have that dubious distinction,” Joe reminds us, “so Shanumi, Keenan, Tariq, and James, come and join us!” The four daredevils take their places alongside the two presenters.

“So, it’s the first time in the Dare-Off for most of you,” Trixie points out, “how are you feeling?”

“A bit nervous, innit” replies Tariq.

“It depends on what the dare is,” James tells her, “if it’s anything musical, I’m in big trouble!”

“Shanumi, you’ve been here before,” Joe reminds her, “does that help?”

“Yeah, a bit,” she says, “I got through that one, so I can get through this one as well.”

“Well, let’s find out what our Live Dare-Off involves tonight,” says Trixie, “and go over to our very own Dare Deliverer!”

The familiar voice seeps into every part of us, as this week’s dare is revealed. “Well, my little songbirds,” she begins, “it’s karaoke time on our Musical Extravaganza! I dare you to get up and sing! You’ll each be given 90 seconds to give it your all! But remember, the performance judged to be the poorest will mean a quick taxi home tonight! Good luck, my little daredevils!”

Shanumi pumps her fist and mutters, “Yesss!” under her breath. Knowing James’ and Tariq’s lack of singing ability makes her very confident of staying on the show.

“James,” Joe says, “that’s not what you wanted to hear!”

“No, definitely not!” agrees James. “I think it’s me or Tariq now!” Tariq nods his head in agreement.

Whilst Joe has been interviewing James, Trixie allows each of the daredevils to select from a set of envelopes she offers them. Once they all have one, she tells them, “Okay, can you all open your envelopes and reveal what’s inside.” They do so, and we see the numbers 1 to 4 randomly distributed amongst the group. That, we assume, is the order in which they will perform their karaoke dare. Trixie confirms this when she announces, “So, we know what order they’re going in, let’s get the karaoke party started!”

She moves across to the other side of the studio, taking Tariq with her, since he has the number 1. As they go, we see Joe give the other three Dare-Off participants headphones and a blindfold each, to keep them from knowing what they’re up against.

Trixie stands Tariq on his spot and shows him where the lyrics will appear. “Tariq, you’ll have 90 seconds to make an impression once the music starts,” she informs him. “Good luck!” She moves out of camera shot, as we hear the distinctive crescendo that forms the start of ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ by Jeff Beck. We all know the song, but it seems for a moment as if Tariq doesn’t. Fortunately, just before he is required to start singing, recognition occurs.

“You’re everywhere and nowhere baby,” Tariq begins, hopelessly out of tune. Undeterred, he presses on, “That’s where you’re at.” As he proceeds to push his way through the verse, leaving musical carnage in his wake, we see Trixie encourage the audience to help him out when we get to the chorus.

“And it’s hi ho silver lining,” we hear a host of voices sing lustily, and it clearly gives Tariq a boost. He works his way through the second verse with more gusto, though it’s not just flies that are in baby’s pea soup – most of the correct notes are submerged in there too! A second rousing chorus brings Tariq’s 90 seconds of torment to an end.

“Great effort, Tariq!” Trixie says, encouragingly.

“I’m just glad that’s over, innit!” he tells her.

Tariq takes his place just out of camera shot, as Joe sends the next victim over. Keenan approaches, his competitiveness forcing him to give this everything he’s got. Once he’s in position, we hear our next choon: Chumbawamba’s ‘Tubthumping’.

“We’ll be singing, … when we’re winning, … we’ll be singing,” Keenan sings, in key, thank goodness. He then leaps up as we get to the rousing bit. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” he informs us as he bounces up and down to make the point. The audience are instantly clapping along, encouraging his energetic performance.

We quickly cut to a shot of Joe, one arm punching the air and head bobbing up and down, singing along with gusto!

Back where it matters, Keenan catches his breath as he gets to the slower bit, before he starts on the various drinks that are being knocked back. Then, with the audience joining in, we get a second round of being knocked down and getting up again, before the music fades away.

“You really got into that!” remarks Trixie. “Is that a particular favourite of yours? Maybe one of your party pieces, or a song that means something special to you?” Considerately, she has lengthened her question a little to give Keenan a chance to catch his breath.

“Oh, who doesn’t like that song?!” he pants.

He is shown over to stand next to Tariq, who gives him a fist bump. Joe, meanwhile, sends James across for his moment of torture.

As Trixie stands him on his spot, he looks into the camera and says, “I apologise in advance for what I’m about to inflict on you!”

Forewarned, we wait to hear which particular song he’s about to put through his own personal vocal mangle. When we find out, we know that Freddie Mercury will be turning in his grave.

“Tonight I’m gonna have myself a real good time!” announces James, in his distinctive Ulster accent. He’s decided to half-sing half-talk the lyrics, which judging by the sung bits may well be a wise decision! “So, don’t … stop … me … now, … don’t … stop … me,” he speaks, wagging a finger at us, before the song gains tempo and energy. “’Cause I’m having a good time, having a good time.” At this point James goes beserk! He may not be able to sing, but he sure as hell is going to put on a performance! He leaps around manically, arms and legs going in all directions, as he attempts to keep up with the lyrics at the same time. ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’? It’s not clear anyone could!

We cut to Joe, who has been joined by Lowri. The two of them are putting almost as much into it as James!

By the time his 90 seconds are up, James is a physical wreck! He has literally given it his all, and the audience respond accordingly. If this doesn’t keep him on the show, nothing will!

Trixie doesn’t even attempt an interview, she simply takes hold of James’ hand and raises it above their heads. After a moment, she shepherds him across to the other two, where he can recover.

Shanumi strolls across, accompanied by Joe, who no longer has anyone left to keep an eye on. Trixie puts her in position, and the music plays. It’s that distinctive sweep that heralds the start of the Cyndi Lauper classic, ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’. The overly-long introduction to the song has been edited out, so that Shanumi can get going straightaway.

“I come home in the morning light, my mother says ‘when you gonna live your life right?’” Shanumi trills, in a powerful voice that we know is going to do the song justice.

She claps to the beat, encouraging the audience to join in, which they do. As she gets to the first appearance of the title in the lyrics, we see that the space behind her is being invaded by Lowri and Aleksandra. They, too, are clapping to the beat, and swaying from side to side. Shanumi appears vaguely aware that something is going on behind her but carries on regardless.

As she tells her “daddy dear” that he’s “still number one”, Joe grooves his way into the shot, dragging Trixie with him. They soon get into it, throwing shapes alongside Lowri and Aleksandra! Trixie looks a little uncomfortable, but her professionalism demands that she sees it through.

We switch briefly to a shot that shows the rest of the daredevils, together with Lorna, swaying and clapping along as well.

Once we hit the chorus, the madcap trio behind Shanumi join in the singing, encouraging the audience to do likewise. Even Trixie is getting more into it. When the end of the 90 seconds brings the partying to a halt, there is general merriment as all four presenters come over to join Shanumi. Lowri throws an arm around her, and Aleksandra takes hold of her hand and encourages her to acknowledge the applause she’s getting.

“Well, I don’t know about you,” Joe says to her, “but I enjoyed that! It’s not just girls that wanna have fun, you know!”

Shanumi is beaming, “Yeah, it was fun! It’s not my style of music, but I just gave it my best!”

Aleksandra takes Shanumi over to join the rest of her group, as Trixie gets down to the important business of the scores.

“Alright,” she says, “we’ve seen all four of our karaoke singers give us what they’ve got, and if it was at all possible, I’d keep all four of them!”

“But it’s not,” declares Joe, “so it’s down to the DAPAs to pass judgement! First up, can we have the score for Tariq, please!”

We get a split-screen shot, so that we can see Tariq’s reaction at the same time as we watch the DAPAs deliver their verdict. Dan gives him a 6 and Danielle a 5, making 11 points in total. Given what he did to Jeff Beck’s classic, that’s a very generous score! Tariq smiles, but we get the impression that he’s convinced his time on the show is coming to an abrupt end tonight.

“That sets the standard,” Trixie comments, “so can we have the results for Keenan, please!”

As we see the next split-screen, the DAPAs award Keenan 14 points in total, with Dan giving 8 of those. We see Keenan breathe a sigh of relief as he realises he is safe for another week, before he smiles to the camera.

“Keenan, you’re safe,” Joe confirms, “we’ll be seeing you next week!” He is about to ask for James’ score, when he is interrupted by Lowri.

“Can I just say something?” she kind-of-asks. She turns to address the DAPAs. “Now, look, Danielle, I think you need to loosen up a bit! I’ve been watching you each week, and you seem to be a bit of a misery guts! So, maybe a bit less attitude, and let’s have some fun!”

The audience cheer Lowri’s intervention enthusiastically. They, too, have come to see DAPA Danielle as the pantomime villain, so anyone taking her on is going to get their support. Danielle, however, just stands impassively, with her arms folded across her chest.

“So, bearing that in mind,” Lowri continues, “can we have the scores for James, please!”

Whether Lowri has made a difference is doubtful, and, from our split-screen view, we can see James is looking extremely anxious. Will his manic performance disguise his hopeless vocal ability? Dan’s score of 7 gives him hope, and when Danielle awards 5 he knows he has scraped in by the narrowest of margins. He wipes his forehead to indicate his great relief. We cut to a shot of Tariq, who now knows his time is up.

“James is back with us next week,” Aleksandra informs us, as she takes her turn with the DAPAs, “so it is all down to Shanumi. What are the scores for her, please?”

The screen splits again, and we see Shanumi frown when she only gets a 7 from Dan. Musically, she was far superior to James and yet she’s been awarded the same score. She is happier when Danielle adds an 8 to that, to give her a total of 15.

“That means, Shanumi, Keenan, and James are all safe,” says Trixie, as Lowri shepherds the trio back to the other daredevils.

Trixie and Joe position themselves either side of Tariq, who knows what’s coming. Aleksandra nudges Joe to one side and stands next to Tariq, putting a comforting arm around his shoulder.

“Well, Tariq,” Trixie says, “unfortunately we’re going to have say goodbye to you!”

“You’ve been a great sport!” Joe tells him. He turns to the camera and says, “Before he goes, let’s take a look at some of the highlights!”

A short montage begins with Tariq eating pieces of eel, before we see him playing keepy-uppy with a group of young teenagers. The next clip shows a very dapper-looking Tariq, dressed in a waistcoat and trouser ensemble. His comment from earlier in this week’s show that “this is getting us nowhere”, is followed by a final shot of him in an Aston Villa shirt trying to get the crowd going at Wembley. The audience give him a deserved round of applause.

“Let’s give it up one last time for Tariq!” encourages Trixie, and Tariq turns to walk off. Before he can move, Aleksandra gives him a peck on the cheek and a light pat on his backside! He then walks off, exiting Britain’s Most Daring as he does so.

“That means we’re down to a dozen daredevils, now,” Joe points out.

“We’ve had an absolute blast this week!” Trixie tells us. “So, whatever you do, make sure you join us again next week for some more fantastic dare action on Britain’s Most Daring!”

Trixie, Joe, and Aleksandra wave to the camera, and we pull out and pan across the studio to find Lorna and Lowri with the 12 remaining daredevils, all waving too. As the credits start to roll, the screen once more fades, gradually, to black behind them.

“I’ve got 87 messages!” announces Lissie.

“Well, that should keep you busy for all of 5 minutes!” her Dad replies, cynically. She gives him a very false smile.

Maddie is also busy on her phone, so presumably she’s got plenty of messages as well!

Thankfully, I don’t do social media, and Phil, as he delights in telling everyone, is waiting for the arrival of anti-social media before he joins the online crowd. So, we just sit and snuggle on the sofa.

Color me green…
 

You had warned us that this was coming, so I can hardly claim surprise, but you happened to launch this just as I was beginning a renovation in our front bedroom, so I was away from keyboard for three and a half weeks. Back now, but it'll take me a while to get caught up. I finished the first Weekly Update installment and decided that was a good place to break for now. Thank you for this:

I much appreciate the warning! Some notes from the first week:
a) I see you've resolved the font issue. I like your use of color, and you've got the bold type down to perfection.
b) I have had to look up a few words; 'wor' bothers me quite a bit, for no good reason, and I admit to some surprise at discovering that 'yokel' means the same thing there that it does here! I didn't bother with the food dishes, as you explained them quite well in the text. It's amazing how different foods bother different people. The vegetables would've given me the most difficulty, whilst uncooked bacon isn't bad at all. My father used to eat (really drink) raw eggs, so I don't think I'd've failed at that… or the raw dough, but most of those dishes would've sent me packing. I'm not the least bit daring.
c) I find the most pleasant British accent to be what we call 'the BBC accent'. I read once that Britain has fifty recognizable accents. Of those, I only find half a dozen to be really intelligible. I have an uncle who's from (I think) Seaford (Lewes district, East Sussex), and I have no difficulty understanding him, but that might be from force of long habit. When I watch a movie with regional accents, such as "Gosford Park", I have to rewind and start again half an hour in, as it takes my ear that long to begin comprehending what's being said. I found that to be true even when watching the movie for the third time in a year.

You've done a wonderful job of evoking the feeling I get when listening to other people discussing these unscripted shows. I can't speak from experience as nobody in my family watches them, and we don't understand what the attraction is supposed to be, but you seem to really have this down… and I can see why it's going to take you months to reach the end of the show's season, though I doubt you'll let reaching the end stop you from continuing the story!

Well, enjoy yourself. I'll read a bit more tomorrow and in a few days, but can't promise I'll stick with it, as (as you anticipated) the subject matter doesn't appeal to me. Still, you've done a good job with it through post #13.

Thanks, Curtis!
 

Hope the renovations [are going]/[went]* well! Unfortunate timing, since, once you've got behind with this story there's an awful lot of catching up to do!

*delete as appropriate

Haha! Actually, this story ends at precisely the point that the final episode ends!!

If you do keep going, you might be pleasantly surprised. That's one of the things I've most enjoyed about this story being broken into episodes like it is: each episode is similar-yet-different (very different in some cases!), which has made it a lot of fun to write!

So why not stick with it ... go on, I dare you!! :D

Weekly Update
 

I can't delete, as they're both appropriate! My part in them is done, but we need to get someone in to hook up the ceiling fan — either a professional electrician for $90 or the prospective son-in-law of the woman who owns the other half of the house for free. Free is our first choice, but he's devilishly hard to get ahold of, so we may end up springing for it… which would be bad, considering that we went $500 over budget already.

So, I'm through the second weekly update. Notes:

This wiggling isn't just cute, it's helping to keep her slim. People who fidget regularly burn 5 to 10 pounds of fat per year, depending on just what they do and how often. I used to wiggle my feet, but gave it up in college, and now I'm sorry I did!

From a later part of that paragraph we learn that by "American accent" Ayla really means 'General American' accent, as that's the one used by most actors. I mentioned the fifty distinguishable British accents last post, so I Googled 'number of American accents' and came up with one site (dialect blog) that lists a dozen, two of which are Canadian, whilst the Washington Post counts two dozen just in the U.S. Wikipedia agrees with dialect blog on major dialects, but also counts twelve minor variations in the U.S. and eight in Canada.

According to dialect blog I speak General American, but according to the Post I'm in the Inland Northern region. (Wikipedia has us outside all defined regions, specifically in a dead zone between Inland North and Western New England. It also says that General American got its start as Inland North, but IN has veered away from it over time. I find this all fascinating.) Supposedly we say 'fried cake' instead of 'doughnut' here, and pronounce 'roof' and 'creek' as 'ruff' and 'crick'. We do not.

Oh, and what I called 'the BBC accent' is apparently officialy termed 'Received Pronunciation'.

This could actually work, and goes along with the woman who convinced the 8 and 9 year olds that she was a children's illustrator. Children that age can be quite easily taken in. Certainly I was! Back when I was eight-and-a-half I met a couple of fellows on the (american) football field across the street from our house, and they had no difficulty convincing me that one of them was Joe Namath. That means nothing to you, but at that time he was as well-known here as David Beckham was a few years ago in England. What should have clued me in was that he was kicking field goals (and doing it very well), which would not have been in Joe Namath's skill set — he being a quarterback rather than a placekicker.

My uncle is 'Chelsea for life', which apparently is an actual thing over there. He's followed the team since 1940, but has very little knowledge of non-Chelsea football. This mirrors my situation with the New York Mets. People assume I'm a baseball fan because I'm religious about the Mets, but I know almost nothing about any other teams… except that I hate the Yankees! (We have a real City vs. United rivalry going over here.)

Well, I'll finish through episode three tomorrow, then I'm off for a few days. Good luck!

EDIT: A fun little thing to try. I'm interested to see where a Brit would be placed. It did a good job of placing me. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...-quiz-map.html

Time differences: don't you hate them!
 

Thanks Curtis! I'll try the fun thing and see where it places me!

I see you edited the post and, really disappointingly, you did so before I had a chance to see the whore joke you were concerned about. I'm now intrigued to know exactly what you put; presumably it was a dig at Joe's use of "wor" instead of "our". This, I can assure you, is a very common Geordie thing! Please feel free to reinstate the joke, I won't (and wouldn't) have been the least bit offended by it!